Mlle. Fouchette Part 49

Madame Podvin stopped at the sight of Mlle. Fouchette's face; but, uncertain whether the subject pained, interested, or irritated the latter, she continued,----

"It was shortly after you left. He was very curious,--one of these government spies, you know, Fouchette----"

"Madame, I would see Mademoiselle Madeleine," interrupted the other.

Madame Podvin frowned.

"Not sick, I hope," added Fouchette.

"Oh! no; only----"

"Drinking?"

"Like a fish!"

"Poor Madeleine!"

"She's a beast!" cried Madame Podvin.

Madame Podvin sold vile liquor but despised the fools who drank it, and in this she was not singular.

"Is she----" Mlle. Fouchette raised her eyes heavenward inquiringly.

"No,--she's in the street. Ever since she got out of the hospital she has been going from bad to worse every day. And she owes me two weeks'

lodging. If she doesn't pay up soon I'll----"

Whatever the Podvin intended to do with Madeleine she left it unsaid, for the latter stood in the doorway.

Great, indeed, was the change which had come over this unfortunate girl. Stout to repulsiveness, shabby of attire, fiery of face, unsteady of pose, with one bright beautiful eye burning with the supernatural fire of absinthe, the other sealed in internal darkness.

"Oh! Madeleine----" began Mlle. Fouchette, painfully impressed and hesitating.

"What! No! Fouchette? Mon ange!"

The drunken woman staggered forward to embrace her friend.

"Why, Madeleine----"

"Hold! And first tell me your bad news. You know you always bring me bad news, deary. You hunt me up when you have bad news. Come, now!"

"La, la, la, la!" trilled Mlle. Fouchette, pa.s.sing her arm around the other's thick waist to gain time.

"Come! mon ange,--we'll have a drink anyhow. Mere! some absinthe,--we have thirst."

"No, no; not now, Madeleine."

"Not a drop here!" said Madame Podvin, seeing that Mlle. Fouchette was not disposed to pay.

"Not now," interposed the latter,--"a little later. I want a word or two with you, Madeleine, first. Just two minutes!"

The one brilliant orb regarded the girl intently, as if it would dive into her soul; but the habitual good-nature yielded.

"Very well. Come then, cherie,--a l'imperiale!"

And, indeed, the narrow, spiral stair more closely resembled that which leads to the imperiale of the Paris omnibus than anything found in the modern house.

The s.p.a.ce above was divided in four, the first part being the small antechamber, dimly lighted from the roof, which they now entered.

Through a door to the right they were in a room one-third of which was already occupied by an iron camp-bed. The rest of the furniture consisted of a little iron washstand, a chair, and some sort of a box covered with very much soiled chintz that was once pretty. Above this latter article of furniture was a small shelf, on which were coquettishly arranged a folding mirror and other cheap articles of toilet. A few fans of the cheap j.a.panesque variety were pinned here and there in painful regularity. A cheap holiday skirt and other feminine belongings hung on the wall over the cot. In the small, square, recessed window opening on Rue Mouffetard were pots of flowering plants that gave an air of refinement and comfort to a place otherwise cheerless and miserable.

And over all of this poverty and wretchedness hung a blackened ceiling so low that the feather of Mlle. Fouchette swept it,--so low and dark and heavy and lugubrious that it seemed to threaten momentarily to crush out what little human life and happiness remained there.

Madeleine silently motioned her visitor to the chair and threw herself on the creaking bed. She waited, suspiciously.

"The riots, you know, Madeleine," began Mlle. Fouchette.

"Dame! There is always rioting. One hears, but one doesn't mind."

"Unless one has friends, Madeleine----"

The maimed and half-drunken woman tried to straighten up.

"Well? Out with it, Fouchette. If one has friends in the row----"

"Why, then we feel an interest in our friends, n'est-ce pas?"

"It is about Lerouge!"

"Yes, Madeleine, I want----"

"Is he hurt?"

"Yes,--badly,--and is at the Hotel Dieu. I want his address. He has moved from 7 Rue Dareau since the police--since----"

"You want his address for the police," said the girl.

"Oh! no! no! not for that, dear!"

"Not for that; then what for? Tell me why you want it."

This was exactly what Mlle. Fouchette evidently did not desire to do.

Madeleine saw it, and added firmly,--

"Tell me first, then--well, then I'll see."

"I will, then," rejoined the other, savagely.

"Speak!"

"I wish to notify his sister."