Mlle. Fouchette Part 79

She hastily roused herself. She re-entered the little salon, and upon a sign from Jean conducted Henri Lerouge and his sister to Jean's bedroom, where she a.s.sisted Mlle. Remy to remove her hat. For up to this time the party had been grouped in running conversation without having settled down.

"How you tremble, child!" exclaimed Andree,--"and you look so scared and pale. Is it, then, so bad as all that? What is the matter? Have they been quarrelling? I don't understand."

"Andree!" whispered her brother, warningly. "Remember the salt woman!"

Mlle. Fouchette raised one little nervous finger to her lips and gently closed the door.

"Pray do not seem to notice," she whispered. "But you did not know, then, that Jean and his father have been estranged, oh! for months?

That the poor young man had been cast off,--forsaken by father and mother----"

"But why?" insisted Mlle. Remy. "It must have been something dreadful,--some horrible mistake, I mean. Why should----"

The confusion of Mlle. Fouchette was too evident to press this questioning. And it was increased by the curious manner in which the pair regarded her.

For a single instant she had wavered. She had secretly pressed her lips to her sister's dress, and she felt that she could give the whole world for one little loving minute in her sister's arms.

"Fouchette!"

At least one dilemma relieved her from another; so she flew to answer Jean's call, like the well-trained servant she was fast becoming.

"That's right, Fouchette. I'm glad to find you more attentive to our guests than I am. But I've been so confoundedly upset--and everlastingly happy. We shall want another plate. Yes, my father will honor us. I say, Fouchette, what a night! What a night!"

"I am so glad, Monsieur Jean! I am so glad!"

He considered her an instant and then hustled her into the kitchen and shut the door. "Let us consult a moment, my pet.i.te menagere," were his last words to be overheard. In the kitchen he took her hands in his.

"Look here, Fouchette! I owe my happiness to you. Everything, mind you,--everything!"

"But have I not been happy, too?"

"There! For what you have done for me I could not repay you in a lifetime, little one."

"Then don't try, Monsieur Jean," she retorted, as if annoyed.

"And I'm going to ask you to increase the obligation. It is that you will continue to preserve the character you have a.s.sumed,--just for this occasion, you know. It will save me from----"

"Ah, ca! It is not much, Monsieur Jean," she interrupted, with a seraphic smile. "To be your servant, monsieur, is---- I mean, to do anything to please you is happiness."

"You are good, Fouchette,--so good! And when I think that I have no way to repay you----"

"Have I laid claim to reward?" she interposed, suddenly withdrawing her hands. "Have I asked for anything?"

"No, no! that is the worst of it!"

"Only your friendship,--your--your esteem, monsieur,--it is enough.

Yet now that your affairs are all right and that you are happy, we must--must part,--it will be necessary,--and--and----" There was a pleading note in her low voice.

"Well?"

"You have been a brother,--a sort of a brother and protector to me, anyhow, you know, and it would wrong--n.o.body----"

The blood had slowly mounted to her neck as she spoke and the lips quivered a little as she offered them.

It was the last, and when he was gone she felt that it would strengthen her and enable her to bear up under the burden she had laid upon herself. She went about the additional preparations for the dinner mechanically.

There was not a happier quartette in all Paris on this eventful evening than that which sat around the little table in Jean Marot's humble appartement in ancient Rue St. Jacques.

And poor little Mlle. Fouchette!

The very sharpness of the contrast made her patient, resolute abnegation more beautiful, her sacrifice more complete, her poignant suffering more divine. Unconsciously she rose towards the elevated plane of the Christ. She wore the crown of thorns in her heart; on her face shone the superhuman smile of sainthood.

If in his present sudden and overwhelming happiness Jean forgot Mlle.

Fouchette except when she was actually before him he must be forgiven.

But neither his father nor Henri Lerouge was so blind, though the latter evidently saw Mlle. Fouchette from a totally different point of view.

The gracious manner and encouraging smile of Mlle. Remy happily diverted Fouchette from the consideration of her critics. Every kind word and every smile went home to Mlle. Fouchette. And for the moment she gave way to the pleasure they created, as a stray kitten leans up against a warm brick. Sometimes it seemed as if she must break down and throw herself upon the breast of this lovely girl and claim her natural right to be kept there, forever next to her heart!

At these moments she had recourse to her kitchen, where she had time to recover her equilibrium. But Fouchette was a more than ordinarily self-possessed young woman. She had been educated in a severe school, though one in which the emotions were permitted free range. It was love now which required the curb.

She served the dinner mechanically, but she served it well. Amid the wit and badinage she preserved the shelter of her humble station.

Yet she knew that she was the frequent subject of their conversation.

She saw that she was being covertly scrutinized by Lerouge. And, what was harder to bear, the elder Marot showed his sympathy by good-natured comments on her appearance and service. The cry of "Fouchette!" recalling her to all this from her refuge in the kitchen invariably sent a tremor through her slender frame.

"Henri said you were so practical!" laughingly remarked Mlle. Andree.

"And am I not?" asked Jean, looking around the room.

"Not a bit! There is nothing practical here,--no,--and your Fouchette is the most impossible of all."

"Ah, Jean!" broke in Henri, "this Fouchette,--come now, tell us about her."

"With proper reservations," said M. Marot, seriously.

"No; everything!" cried Andree.

She could see that it teased him, and persisted. "Anybody would know that she is not a common servant. Look at her hands!"

"I've seen your Fouchette somewhere under different circ.u.mstances,"

muttered Lerouge, "but I can't just place her."

"Well," said Jean, after a moment's reflection, "she is an uncommon servant."

He began to see that some frankness was the quickest way out of an unpleasant subject. "The fact is, as she has already told my father, Fouchette is an artist's model and lives next door to me. She takes care of my rooms for a consideration. But all the money in the world would not repay what I owe her,--quite all of my present happiness!

Let me add, my dear mademoiselle, that the less attention you show her, the less you seem to notice her, the better she will like it."

"How interesting!" cried Andree; "and how unsatisfactory!"

"Very," said her brother, with a meaning smile.