Mlle. Fouchette Part 73

"Oho! And she's a dirty spy like you! I know it! And I'll kill her!

D'you hear that? a mort! The miserable moucharde!"

"Not to-day, my precious!" said the man, cleverly changing his grip for one of real steel. "Not to-day. Here is where you go with me, deary. Come!"

"I tell you I'll kill her!"

"We'll see about that later; in the mean time you can have a chance to sweat some of that absinthe out of you in St. Lazare. And look sharp, now! If you don't come along quietly I'll have you dragged through the streets! Understand?"

Mlle. Fouchette had, happily unconscious of this exciting scene, pa.s.sed out of sight, inquired as to the condition of Lerouge, sent in the letter by a trusty nurse, and was returning across the Parvis de la Notre Dame at the same moment that Madeleine, alternately weeping and cursing, was thrown into her cell at the Prefecture.

CHAPTER XX

A fortnight had pa.s.sed since the note to Lerouge, and to all appearances the latter had ignored it and its author.

Mlle. Fouchette was ordinarily an infallible remedy for blue-devils; but to Jean Marot Mlle. Fouchette was fast becoming a mere matter of course. A patient little beast of burden, she was none the less useful to a young man floundering around in the mire of politics, love, and other dire uncertainties.

As otherwise very good husbands are wont to unload their irritability on their wives, so Jean was inclined to favor Mlle. Fouchette. And as doting wives who voluntarily const.i.tute themselves drudges soon become fixed in that lowly position, so Mlle. Fouchette naturally became the servant of the somewhat masterful Jean Marot.

She cheerfully accepted these exactions of his variable temper along with the responsibility for the economical administration of his domestic affairs.

But even the brightest and most willing of servants cannot always antic.i.p.ate what is in the master's mind; so Jean had come to giving orders to Mlle. Fouchette. He had not yet beaten her, but the careless observer might have ventured the opinion that this would come in time.

It is the character of Frenchmen to beat women,--to stab them in the back one day when they are bored with them. The Paris press furnishes daily examples of this sort of chivalry. As a rule, the life of wife or mistress in France is a condition little short of slavery.

The mere arrangement of words is unimportant to the woman who antic.i.p.ates blows, and who, doubtless, after the fierce fashion of the Latins, would love more intensely when these blows fell thickest and heaviest. As for being ordered about and scolded, it was a recognition of his dependence upon her.

Over and above all other considerations was Jean's future happiness.

In this, at least, they were harmonious. For Jean himself was also looking solely to that end.

Since that memorable night when one brief pencilled sentence from Inspector Loup had bestowed upon her a new birth she found double reason for every sacrifice. She not only trampled her love underfoot with new courage, but bent all her energy and influence towards the reconciliation of Jean Marot and Henri Lerouge.

Mlle. Fouchette had gone to the hospital every day to ascertain the young man's condition. And when he had been p.r.o.nounced convalescent she ascertained his new address. All of which was duly reported to Jean, who began to wonder at this sudden interest in one for whom she had formerly expressed only dislike.

Mlle. Fouchette offered no explanation of her conduct,--a woman is never bound to give a reason for her change of opinions. She never asked to see Lerouge,--never sent in her name to him,--but merely inquired, saying she was sent by one of his old friends. As she had intended, the name of this friend, Jean Marot, had been finally carried to Henri Lerouge.

One day she had seen Mlle. Remy, and had been so agitated and nervous that it was all she could do to sustain herself in the shadow of one of the great stone columns. She had watched for this opportunity for days; yet when it suddenly presented itself she could only hide, trembling, and permit the girl to pa.s.s without a word.

"If I could only touch her!--feel her pretty fingers in my hand! Ah!

but can I ever bring myself to that without betrayal? They would be so happy! and I,--why should I not be happy also? I love him,--I love her,--and if they love each other,--she can help it no more than he,--it would be impossible!"

Thus she reasoned with herself as the sunny head of Mlle. Remy disappeared in the gloomy corridor. Thus she reasoned with herself over and over again, as if the resolution she had taken required constant bracing and strengthening.

And it did require it.

For Mlle. Fouchette, humble child of the slums, had bravely cut out for herself a task that would have appalled the stoutest moralist.

Love had not only softened the nature of Mlle. Fouchette, as is seen,--it had revolutionized her. The fierce spirit to which she owed her reputation--of the feline claws and ready boot-heel--had vanished and left her weak and sensitive and meekly submissive. Personally she had not realized this change because she had not reasoned with herself on the subject. Not only her whole time but her entire mind and soul were absorbed in the service of Love. She gloried in her self-abas.e.m.e.nt.

Mlle. Fouchette would have gone farther,--would have deliberately and gladly sacrificed everything that a woman can lay upon the altar of her affections. She had no moral scruples, being only a poor little heathen among the heathen.

Somewhat disappointed and not a little chagrined at first that Jean had not required, or even hinted at, this sacrifice, she had ended by secretly exulting in this n.o.bility of character that made him superior to other young men, and distinctly approved of his fidelity to the image in his heart. Deprived of this means of proving her complete devotion to him, she elevated him upon a higher pedestal and prostrated herself more humbly.

Wherein she differed materially from the late Madame Potiphar.

As for Jean Marot, it is to be reluctantly admitted that he really deserved none of this moral exaltation, being merely human, and a common type of the people who had abolished G.o.d and kings in one fell swoop, constructed a calendar to suit themselves, and worshipped Reason in Notre Dame represented by a ballet dancer. In other words, he was an egoist of the egoists of earth.

He was, in fact, so unbearably a bear in his treatment of little Fouchette that only the most extraordinary circ.u.mstances would seem to excuse him.

And the circ.u.mstances were quite extraordinary. Jean was suffering from personal notoriety. Unseen hands were tossing him about and pulling him to pieces. Unknown purposes held him as in a vice.

Within the last two weeks his mail had grown from two to some twenty letters a day,--most of which letters were not only of a strongly incendiary nature, but expressed a wholly false conception of his political position and desires. He was being inundated by indiscriminate praise and abuse. There were reams of well-meant advice and quires of threats of violence.

Among these letters had been some enclosing money and drafts to a considerable amount,--to be used in a way which was plainly apparent.

From a distinguished royalist he had received in a single cover the sum of ten thousand francs "for the cause." From another had come five thousand francs for his "personal use." Various smaller sums aggregated not less than ten thousand francs more, most of which was to be expended at discretion in the restoration of a "good" and "stable" and "respectable" government to unhappy France. Besides cash were drafts and promises,--the latter reaching unmeasured sums. And interspersed with all these were strong hints of political preferment that would have turned almost any youthful head less obstinate than that which ornamented the broad shoulders of Jean Marot.

At first Jean was amused, then he was astonished. Finally he became indignant and angry to the bursting-point.

It was several days before he could adequately comprehend what had provoked this furious storm, with its shower of money and warning flashes of wrath and rumblings of violence. Then it became clear that he was being made the political tool of the reactionary combination then laying the axe at the root of the republican tree. The Orleanists, Bonapartists, Anti-Semites, and their allies were quick to see the value of a popular leader in the most turbulent and unmanageable quarter of Paris. The Quartier Latin was second only to Montmartre as a propagating bed for revolution; the fiery youth of the great schools were quite as important as the butchers of La Villette.

The conclusions of the young leader were materially a.s.sisted and hastened by the flattering attention with which he was received by the young men wearing royalist badges, and by the black looks from the more timid republicans. He thereupon avoided the streets of the quarter, and devoted his time to answering such letters as bore signature and address. He sought to disabuse the public mind, so far as the writers were concerned, by declaring his adherence to the republic, and by returning the money so far as possible.

Jean Marot had now for the first time, with many others, turned his attention to the revelations in the Dreyfus case as appeared in the _Figaro_, and saw with amazement the use being made of a wholly fict.i.tious crisis to destroy French liberty. He was appalled at these disclosures. Not that they demonstrated the innocence of a condemned man, but because they showed the utter absence of conscience on the part of his accusers and the criminal ignorance of the military leaders on whom France relied in the hour of public danger. For the first time he saw, what the whole civilized world outside of France had seen with surprise and indignation, that the conviction of Captain Dreyfus rested upon the testimony of a staff-officer of n.o.ble blood who lived openly and shamelessly on the immoral earnings of his mistress, and who was the self-acknowledged agent of a maison de toleration on commission. In the person of this distinguished member of the "condotteri" was centred the so-called "honor of the army." As for the so-called "evidence," no police judge of England or America would have given a man five days on it.

Matters were at this stage when one morning about a fortnight since the day Mlle. Fouchette had changed masters they reached the bursting-point. Jean suddenly jumped from his seat where he had been looking over his mail and broke into a torrent of invective.

"Dame!" said Mlle. Fouchette, coming in from the kitchen in the act of manipulating a plate with a towel,--"surely, Monsieur Jean, it can't be as bad as that!"

"Mille tonnerres!" cried Jean, kicking the chair viciously,--"it's worse!"

"Worse?"

"Fouchette, you're a fool!"

Mlle. Fouchette kicked the door till it rattled. She also used oaths, rare for her.

"Stop!" he roared. "What in the devil's name are you doing that for?

Stop!"

"Why not? I don't want to be a fool. I want to do just as you do, monsieur!"

"Oh, yes! it is funny; but suppose Inspector Loup wanted you for a spy----"

The plate slipped to the floor with a loud crash.

"There!" he exclaimed. And seeing how confused she got,--"Never mind, Fouchette. Come here! Look at that!"