"How can a poster matter so much to you? The proposal is absurd." She regarded her peche Melba with a frown.

"If you think of becoming an actress, remember what a splendid advertis.e.m.e.nt it would be!" he urged feverishly.

"Oh, flute!" But she had wavered at that.

"All Paris would flock to your debut. They would go saying, 'Can she be as beautiful as her portrait?' And they would come back saying, 'She is lovelier still!' Let me give you some more wine."

"No more; I'll have coffee, and a grand marnier--red."

"Doubtless the more expensive colour!" reflected Goujaud. But the time had pa.s.sed for dwelling on minor troubles. "Listen," he resumed; "I shall tell you my history. You will then realise to what an abyss of despair your refusal will plunge me--to what effulgent heights I may be raised by your consent. You cannot be marble! My father--"

"Indeed, I am not marble," she put in. "I am instinct with sensibility --it is my great weakness."

"So much the better. Be weak to _me_. My father--"

"Oh, let us get out of this first!" she suggested, "You can talk to me as we drive."

And the attentive Jules presented the discreetly folded bill.

For fully thirty seconds the Pavilion d'Armenonville swirled round the unfortunate painter so violently that he felt as if he were on a roundabout at a fair. He feared that the siren must hear the pounding of his heart. To think that he had dreaded paying two louis! Two louis?

Why, it would have been a bagatelle! Speechlessly he laid a fortune on the salver. With a culminating burst of recklessness he waved four francs towards Jules, and remarked that that personage eyed the tip with cold displeasure. "What a lucrative career, a waiter's!" moaned the artist; "he turns up his nose at four francs!"

Well, he had speculated too heavily to accept defeat now! Bracing himself for the effort, Goujaud besought the lady's help with such a flood of blandishment during the drive that more than once she seemed at the point of yielding. Only one difficult detail had he withheld-- that he wished to pose her on the knee of Mephistopheles--and to propitiate her further, before breaking the news, he stopped the cab at a florist's.

She was so good-humoured and tractable after the florist had pillaged him that he could scarcely be callous when she showed him that she had split her glove. But, to this day, he protests that, until the glove-shop had been entered, it never occurred to him that it would be necessary to present her with more than one pair. As they came out-- Goujaud moving beside her like a man in a trance--she gave a faint start.

"Mon Dieu!" she muttered. "There's my friend--he has seen us--I must speak to him, or he will think I am doing wrong. Wait a minute!" And a dandy, with a monocle, was, indeed, casting very supercilious glances at the painter.

At eight o'clock that evening, monsieur Tricotrin, with a prodigious appet.i.te, sat in the Cafe du Bel Avenir, awaiting the arrival of his host. When impatience was mastering him, there arrived, instead, a pet.i.t bleu. The impecunious poet took it from the proprietress, paling, and read:

"I discovered my Ideal--she ruined, and then deserted me! To-morrow there will be a painter the less, and a petrole merchant the more.

Pardon my non-appearance--I am spending my last sous on this message."

"Monsieur will give his order now?" inquired the proprietress.

"Er--thank you, I do not dine to-night," said Tricotrin.

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS

In the summer of the memorable year ----, but the date doesn't matter, Robichon and Quinquart both paid court to mademoiselle Brouette, Mademoiselle Brouette was a captivating actress, Robichon and Quinquart were the most comic of comedians, and all three were members of the Theatre Supreme.

Robichon was such an idol of the public's that they used to laugh before he uttered the first word of his role; and Quinquart was so vastly popular that his silence threw the audience into convulsions.

Professional rivalry apart, the two were good friends, although they were suitors for the same lady, and this was doubtless due to the fact that the lady favoured the robust Robichon no more than she favoured the skinny Quinquart. She flirted with them equally, she approved them equally--and at last, when each of them had plagued her beyond endurance, she promised in a pet that she would marry the one that was the better actor. Tiens! Not a player on the stage, not a critic on the Press could quite make up his mind which the better actor was. Only Suzanne Brouette could have said anything so tantalising.

"But how shall we decide the point, Suzanne?" stammered Robichon helplessly. "Whose p.r.o.nouncement will you accept?"

"How can the question be settled?" queried Quinquart, dismayed. "Who shall be the judge?"

"Paris shall be the judge," affirmed Suzanne. "We are the servants of the public--I will take the public's word!"

Of course she was as pretty as a picture, or she couldn't have done these things.

Then poor Quinquart withdrew, plunged in reverie. So did Robichon.

Quinquart reflected that she had been talking through her expensive hat. Robichon was of the same opinion. The public lauded them both, was no less generous to one than to the other--to wait for the judgment of Paris appeared equivalent to postponing the matter _sine die_. No way out presented itself to Quinquart. None occurred to Robichon.

"Mon vieux," said the latter, as they sat on the terrace of their favourite cafe a day or two before the annual vacation, "let us discuss this amicably. Have a cigarette! You are an actor, therefore you consider yourself more talented than I. I, too, am an actor, therefore I regard you as less gifted than myself. So much for our artistic standpoints! But we are also men of the world, and it must be obvious to both of us that we might go on being funny until we reached our death-beds without demonstrating the supremacy of either. Enfin, our only hope lies in versatility--the conqueror must distinguish himself in a solemn part!" He viewed the other with complacence, for the quaint Quinquart had been designed for a droll by Nature.

"Right!" said Quinquart. He contemplated his colleague with satisfaction, for it was impossible to fancy the fat Robichon in tragedy.

"I perceive only one drawback to the plan," continued Robichon, "the Management will never consent to accord us a chance. Is it not always so in the theatre? One succeeds in a certain line of business and one must be resigned to play that line as long as one lives. If my earliest success had been scored as a villain of melodrama, it would be believed that I was competent to enact nothing but villains of melodrama; it happened that I made a hit as a comedian, wherefore n.o.body will credit that I am capable of anything but being comic."

"Same here!" concurred Quinquart. "Well, then, what do you propose?"

Robichon mused. "Since we shall not be allowed to do ourselves justice on the stage, we must find an opportunity off it!"

"A private performance? Good! Yet, if it is a private performance, how is Paris to be the judge?"

"Ah," murmured Robichon, "that is certainly a stumbling-block."

They sipped their aperitifs moodily. Many heads were turned towards the little table where they sat. "There are Quinquart and Robichon, how amusing they always are!" said pa.s.sers-by, little guessing the anxiety at the laughter-makers' hearts.

"What's to be done?" sighed Quinquart at last.

Robichon shrugged his fat shoulders, with a frown.

Both were too absorbed to notice that, after a glance of recognition, one of the pedestrians had paused, and was still regarding them irresolutely. He was a tall, burly man, habited in rusty black, and the next moment, as if finding courage, he stepped forward and spoke:

"Gentlemen, I ask pardon for the liberty I take--impulse urges me to seek your professional advice! I am in a position to pay a moderate fee. Will you permit me to explain myself?"

"Monsieur," returned Robichon, "we are in deep consideration of our latest parts. We shall be pleased to give you our attention at some other time."

"Alas!" persisted the newcomer, "with me time presses. I, too, am considering my latest part--and it will be the only speaking part I have ever played, though I have been 'appearing' for twenty years."

"What? You have been a super for twenty years?" said Quinquart, with a grimace.

"No, monsieur," replied the stranger grimly. "I have been the public executioner; and I am going to lecture on the horrors of the post I have resigned."

The two comedians stared at him aghast. Across the sunlit terrace seemed to have fallen the black shadow of the guillotine.

"I am Jacques Roux," the man went on, "I am 'trying it on the dog' at Appeville-sous-Bois next week, and I have what you gentlemen call 'stage fright'--I, who never knew what nervousness meant before! Is it not queer? As often as I rehea.r.s.e walking on to the platform, I feel myself to be all arms and legs--I don't know what to do with them.

Formerly, I scarcely remembered my arms and legs; but, of course, my attention used to be engaged by the other fellow's head. Well, it struck me that you might consent to give me a few hints in deportment.

Probably one lesson would suffice."

"Sit down," said Robichon. "Why did you abandon your official position?"

"Because I awakened to the truth," Roux answered. "I no longer agree with capital punishment: it is a crime that should be abolished."