Mlle. Fouchette Part 59

"We will treat ourselves to a good dinner au boulevard. You have been my best friend----"

"Oh, Monsieur Jean!"

"Are my best friend," he added. "I really don't see how I could have gotten on without you."

"Ah! Monsieur Jean!"

"You have saved me hundreds of francs,--you are such a good little manager!"

Nothing up to that moment had ever given Mlle. Fouchette half the pleasure bestowed with this praise. Mlle. Fouchette blushed. Jean saw this blush and laughed. It was so funny to see Mlle. Fouchette blush.

This made Mlle. Fouchette blush still deeper. In fact, it seemed as if all the warm blood that had been concealed in Mlle. Fouchette's system so long had taken an upward tendency and now disported itself about her neck and face.

Jean would have kissed her, only she repulsed him angrily; then, seeing his surprise and confusion, she covered her face with her hands and laughed hysterically.

"Mademoiselle----"

"Stop, stop, stop! I knew what you were going to say! It was money again!"

"Really, mademoiselle----"

"It was! You did! You know you did! And you know how I hate it! Don't you dare to offer me money, because I love----" Mlle. Fouchette choked here a little,--"because I love to help you, Monsieur Jean!"

"But I was not thinking of offering you money for your kindness, mon enfant." Jean took this play for safety as genuine wrath.

"You were going to; you know you were!" she retorted, defiantly.

"Well, I suppose I may offer to repay the louis I borrowed the other day?"

"Oh, yes! I'll make you pay your debts, monsieur,--never fear that!"

She began to recover her equilibrium, and smiled confidently in his face. But he was now serious.

"There are some debts one can never pay," said he.

"Never! never! never!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur, whatever I might do, I owe you still! It will always be so!"

"Uh! Uh! That's barred, pet.i.te."

He stopped walking up and down and looked into her earnest eyes without grasping her meaning. "She is more feminine than one would suppose," he said to himself,--"almost interesting, really!"

"Come!" he cried, suddenly, "this is straying from the subject, which is dinner. Come!"

"We'd have to do some marketing, anyhow," she admitted, as if arguing with herself. "Perhaps it is better to go out."

"Most a.s.suredly."

"Not at any fashionable place, Monsieur Jean----"

"Oh, no; is there any such place in the quarter?" he laughingly asked.

"Can't we go over on the other side?"

"Yes, my child, certainly."

"I know a place in Montmartre where one may dine en fete for two francs and a half, cafe compris." She was getting on her things, and for the first time was conscious of the hole in the heel of her stocking.

"There is the Cafe de Paris----"

"Oh! it is five francs!" she exclaimed.

"Well, one may dine better on five francs than two and a half."

"It is too dear, Monsieur Jean."

"Then there is the Hotel du Louvre table-d'hote, four francs,--very good, too."

"It is too fashionable,--too many Americans."

"Parbleu! one can be an American for one meal, can he not? They say Americans live well in their own country. They have meat three times a day,--even the poorest laborers."

"And eat meat for breakfast,--it is horrible!"

"Yes,--they are savages."

After discussing the various places and finding that his ideas of a good dining-place were somewhat more enlarged than her ideas, Mlle.

Fouchette finally brought him down to a Bouillon in Boule'

Miche',--the student appellation for Boulevard St. Michel. She would have preferred any other quarter of the city, though not earnestly enough to stand out for it.

They settled on the Cafe Weber, opposite the ancient College d'Harcourt, a place of the Bouillon order, with innumerable dishes graded up from twenty centimes to a franc and an additional charge of ten centimes for the use of a napkin.

Wine aside, a better meal for less money can be had in a score of places on Broadway. In the matter of wine, the New York to the Paris price would be as a dollar to the franc.

In the Quartier Latin these places are patronized almost exclusively by the student cla.s.s. Not less than fifty of the latter were at table in the Cafe Weber when Jean Marot and Mlle. Fouchette entered. Here and there among them were a few grisettes and as many cocottes of the Cafe d'Harcourt, costumes en bicyclette, demure, hungry, and silent.

Young women in smart caps and white ap.r.o.ns briskly served the tables, while in the centre, in a sort of enclosed pulpit, sat the handsome, rosy-faced dame du comptoir, with a sharp eye for employes and a winning smile and nod for familiar customers.

There was a perceptible sensation upon the entrance of the last comers. A momentary hush was succeeded by a general buzz of conversation, the subject of which was quite easily understood. The stately dame du comptoir immediately opened her little wicket and came down from her perch to show the couple to the best seats, a courtesy rarely extended by that impersonation of restaurant dignity. The hungry women almost stopped eating to see what man was in tow of the "Savatiere."

"We are decidedly an event," laughingly observed Jean as they became seated where they could command the general crowd at table.

"Yes, monsieur," replied the dame du comptoir, though his remark had not been addressed to that lady,--"the fame of the brave Monsieur Marot is well known in the quarter. And--and mademoiselle," she added, sweetly, "mademoiselle--well, everybody knows mademoiselle."

With this under-cut at Mlle. Fouchette the rosy-cheeked cashier left them in charge of the waitress of that particular table.

"You see, Monsieur Jean," said his companion, not at all pleased by this reception, "we are both pretty well known here."

"So it seems. Yet I was never in here before, if I remember correctly."

"Nor I," said she, "but once or twice."