Mlle. Fouchette Part 55

"And then we must find you a new place,--cheaper, don't you know?"

"A good deal cheaper," he said.

"In this quarter they are cheapest."

"Then let it be in the quarter."

"Voila! Now that's all right." A remark which may have equally applied to his affairs or to the putting on of her shoes.

"A very simple appartement will serve," he observed, when she sounded him on his idea of cheapness.

"There is a lovely one de garcon next door to me, but it is dear. It is a little parlor, bedroom, and kitchen. And this is a quiet house, monsieur."

"Good! I like quietude, and----"

"Oh, it is a very quiet place," she a.s.sured him.

"This appartement,--dining-room?"

"No! What does a man alone want with a dining-room? Let him eat in the parlor."

"Yes, that would be luxury," he admitted.

"One doesn't need the earth in order to eat and sleep."

"N-no; but how much is this luxury of the Rue St. Jacques?" he inquired.

"It is four hundred francs, I believe." She heaved a sigh of regret.

It seemed a large sum of money to Mlle. Fouchette.

"Four hundred a year? Only four hundred a year! Parbleu! And now what can one get for four hundred a year, ma pet.i.te Fouchette?"

"S-sh! monsieur,--a good deal!" she exclaimed, smiling at his navete.

With all his patronizing airs she instinctively felt that this man who treated her as if she were a child was really a provincial who needed both mother and business agent.

"I'd like to see it, anyhow," said he.

"At once, monsieur,--so you shall; but it is dear, four hundred francs, when you might get the same at Montrouge for two hundred and fifty francs. Here,--I have the key,--le voila!"

It was the appartement of three rooms next door to her chamber, which seemed to have been cut off from it as something superfluous in the Rue St. Jacques.

"Why--and Monsieur de Beauchamp is----"

"Gone."

"Yesterday?"

"Yesterday afternoon,--yes. Quite sudden, was it not?"

She said this as though it was of no importance.

"The huissier?" he suggested, official ejectment being the most common cause of student troubles.

She laughed secretively.

"The police?"

Then she laughed openly--her pretty little silvery tinkle--and drew his attention to the kitchen.

It was a small dark place with a much-worn tile floor and a charcoal range of two pockets faced and covered with blue and white tiles; an immense hood above yawning like the flat open jaws of a gigantic cobra, which might not only consume all the smoke and smells but gobble up the little tile-covered range itself upon gastronomical provocation.

"Isn't it just lovely!" exclaimed Mlle. Fouchette, delightedly. "And see! here is a stone sink, and there's water and gas."

Water and gas are still deemed luxuries in the more ancient quarters of Paris. As for baths, they are for the rich,--even the more modern structures are parsimonious of baths. You realize all this when in a close omnibus, or smell some well-dressed Parisienne ten feet away.

When one of the dwellers of Rue St. Jacques takes a bath a battered old tub is brought around on a wagon and unloaded in the court with a noise and ceremony that arouses the entire neighborhood, which puts its head out of the window and wonders who is going to be married.

"And here's a private closet, too," continued Mlle.

Fouchette,--"everything! But that sweet little stove! I could cook a course dinner on that!"

"Oh, you could, eh?" inquired Jean. "Then you shall."

"Surely!" said the girl, as if it were settled from the first.

"Besides, it is so much more economical for two than one."

"Oh, is it?" he replied, doubtfully.

"Of course, if one lives at expensive restaurants. And in bad weather or when one feels grumpy----"

They looked at the large bedroom and small anteroom, or toilet-room adjoining, which Mlle. Fouchette declared was good enough for a lord, inspected the closets, commented on the excellent condition of the polished floors and newly papered walls, and finally decided that it really was a good deal for the money.

"It could be made a little paradise," said she, enthusiastically.

"Needing the angels," he suggested.

"Possibly; but one can get along very comfortably without them."

"But I wonder why M. de Beauchamp, installed here so comfortably day before yesterday, should be missing to-day. There must be some drawback here----"

"Oh, no. The truth is, M. de Beauchamp thought he saw--in fact, M. de Beauchamp did see visions. In one of these he was foretold of a possible difference of opinion between himself and the government; about something that was to have happened yesterday and didn't happen----"

"Did not happen. Go on."

"There, Monsieur Jean," she concluded, "that is all. Only, you see, M.

de Beauchamp's arrangements having been made, he probably thought he might as well disappear----"

"And his studio with him."

"Precisely. Look what a nice big closet in the wall!"