Mlle. Fouchette Part 52

"Oh, the miserable cowards!"

He was less moved than she at the loss. It seemed trifling by the side of his other misfortunes.

But the coachman was interested. He carefully noted the number of the house again, and when she pa.s.sed up his fare looked into her face with a knowing leer.

"If monsieur wishes to go back to the Prefecture," he said to her, tentatively.

"Oh, no!" said Jean.

The girl, however, understood the significance of this inquiry, and coldly demanded the man's number.

"If Mademoiselle Fouchette should need you again," she added, putting the slip in her pocket, "she will know where to find you."

And to the manifest astonishment of the cabman, who could not divine what a woman of Rue St. Jacques would want with a man without money, or at least valuables, she slipped her arm through Jean's and entered the house.

The shaded lamp turned low threw a dim light over a little table simply but neatly set for two in Mlle. Fouchette's chamber. A cold cut of beef, some delicate slices of boiled tongue, an open box of sardines, a plate heaped with cold red cabbage, a lemon, olives, etc.,--all fresh from the rotisserie and charcuterie below,--were flanked by a metre of bread and a litre of Bordeaux. The spread looked quite appetizing and formidable.

Absorbed as he was in himself, Jean could not but note the certainty implied in all of this preparation. Mlle. Fouchette could not have known that he would be at liberty, yet she had arranged things exactly as if she had possessed this foreknowledge. If they had not made a mistake and let him off so easily----

"You were, then, sure I would come?"

"Very sure," said she, without turning from the small mirror where she readjusted her hair.

"Now, Monsieur Jean," she began, in a nervous, business-like way, suiting the action to the word, "I'm the doctor. You are to do just as I tell you. First you take this good American whiskey, then you lie down--here--there--that way,--voila!"

"But----"

"No!" putting her delicate hand over his mouth gently,--"you are not to talk, you know."

He stretched himself at full length on the low couch without another protest. She brought a towel and basin and, removing the collar which had been twisted into a dirty rope, bathed his face and neck. She saw the red imprint of fingers on his throat with mingled hatred and commiseration; but she said nothing, only pressing the wet towel to the spot tenderly. In the place of the collar she put a piece of soft flannel saturated with cologne, and pa.s.sed a silk scarf around the neck to hold it there. With comb and brush she softly smoothed out his hair, half toying with the locks about the temples, and perching her little head this way and that, as if to more accurately study the effect.

"Ah! now that looks better. Monsieur is beginning to look civilized."

She carefully pinned the ends of the scarf down over the shirt-front to hide the blood that was there.

All of this with a hundred exclamations and little comments and questions that required no answers, and broken sentences of pity, of raillery, of pleasure, that had no beginning and no ending as grammatical constructions.

Purr, purr, purr.

Finally she rubbed his shoes till they shone, and flecked the dust from his clothes,--to complete which operation it was necessary for him to get up.

A slight noise on the landing caused him to start nervously.

He was still thinking of one thing,--of a man lying cold and stiff at the Hotel Dieu.

Both carefully avoided the subject uppermost in either mind,--Henri Lerouge and his sister.

First, she was astonished that he had not questioned her; next, she sought to escape questioning altogether. She was secretive by nature.

And now, like a contrite and wretched woman conscious of her share of responsibility for a great wrong, she could only humble herself before him and await his will.

"Now, Monsieur Jean," she concluded, "we will eat. Come! You must be hungry,--come! a table, monsieur!"

"Au contraire, I feel as if I could never eat again," he said, desperately.

"What nonsense! Come, monsieur,--sit down here and eat something! You will feel better at once."

"Oh, you do not know! you cannot know!" he groaned, reseating himself and taking his head between his hands. "It is too horrible! horrible!"

"Why, monsieur! What is it? Are you, then, hurt within? Say! Do you suffer? How foolish I have been! I should have brought a doctor!"

She was kneeling in front of him in her genuine alarm. "Where is it, Monsieur Jean? Where is the pain? Tell me! Tell me, then, monsieur!"

"No! no! it is not that, my child! It is here! here! here!" He struck his breast at every word, and bowed his head with abject grief.

She was silent, thinking only of his hapless love. There was no word for that!

"Ah! if it were only that! If it had been me instead of him!"

"Monsieur! My poor Monsieur Jean! You must not give way thus!"

"I am not fit to sit at the table with you, mademoiselle! My hands are red with blood! Do not touch them! Understand? Red!"

"But you are crazy, monsieur!"

"No! I am--I am simply a _murderer_! Do you hear? A MURDERER!"

He whispered it with awful solemnity. Mlle. Fouchette, now thoroughly frightened, recoiled from him. He was mad!

"That's right!" he cried. "That's right, mademoiselle! I'm not fit to touch you! No wonder you shrink from me! For I have blood on my hands,--his blood,--understand?--my friend's! Lerouge dead! dead! And by me!"

"What's that?" she demanded. "Lerouge dead? Nonsense! It is not so!

Who told you that? I say it is not true!"

He seized her almost fiercely,--

"Not dead? Her brother not dead? Say it again! Give me some hope!" he pleaded, pitifully.

"I tell you again it is not so! I saw one who knows but a few minutes before I met you!"

He sank on his knees at her feet and kissed her hands, now trembling with excitement.

"Again!" he exclaimed.

"It is as true as G.o.d!" said she. "And he is doing well!"

He took her in his arms pa.s.sionately, pouring out the thankfulness of his soul in kisses and loving caresses, sobbing like a child. They mingled their tears,--the blessed tears of joy and sympathy!

For a long time they rested thus, immobile, with thoughts too deep for expression,--in a sacred silence broken only by sighs. Then when the calm was complete she softly disengaged herself in saying, "And _she_ is there, Jean," as if completing the sentence long before begun. But it required an effort.