Mademoiselle, I entreat you--take her back!"

"And why should I ease your last moments?" she demurred.

"Because I have no right to ask it; because I have no defence for my sin towards you; because you would be justified in trampling on me--and to pardon would be sublime!"

"You are very eloquent for my maid," returned the lady.

He shook his head. "Ah, no--I fear I am pleading for myself. For, if you reinstate the girl, it will prove that you forgive the man--and I want your forgiveness so much!" He fell at her feet.

"Does your engagement for eight o'clock press, monsieur?" murmured the lady, smiling. "If you could dine here again to-night, I might relent by degrees."

"And she is adorable!" he told Pitou. "I pa.s.sed the most delicious evening of my life!" "It is fortunate," observed Pitou, "for that, and your uncle's undying enmity, are all you have obtained by your imposture. Remember that the evening cost two thousand francs a year!"

"Ah, misanthrope," cried Tricotrin radiantly, "there must be a crumpled roseleaf in every Eden!"

THE FATAL FLOROZONDE

Before Pitou, the composer, left for the Hague, he called on Theophile de Fronsac, the poet. _La Voix Parisienne_ had lately appointed de Fronsac to its staff, on condition that he contributed no poetry.

"Good-evening," said de Fronsac. "Mon Dieu! what shall I write about?"

"Write about my music," said Pitou, whose compositions had been rejected in every arrondiss.e.m.e.nt of Paris.

"Let us talk sanely," demurred de Fronsac. "My causerie is half a column short. Tell me something interesting."

"Woman!" replied Pitou.

De Fronsac flicked his cigarette ash. "You remind me," he said, "how much I need a love affair; my sensibilities should be stimulated. To continue to write with fervour I require to adore again."

"It is very easy to adore," observed Pitou.

"Not at forty," lamented the other; "especially to a man in Cla.s.s A.

Don't forget, my young friend, that I have loved and been loved persistently for twenty-three years. I cannot adore a repet.i.tion, and it is impossible for me to discover a new type."

"All of which I understand," said Pitou, "excepting 'Cla.s.s A.'"

"There are three kinds of men," explained the poet. "Cla.s.s A are the men to whom women inevitably surrender. Cla.s.s B consists of those whom they trust by instinct and confide in on the second day; these men acquire an extensive knowledge of the s.e.x--but they always fall short of winning the women for themselves. Cla.s.s C women think of merely as 'the others'--they do not count; eventually they marry, and try to persuade their wives that they were devils of fellows when they were young. However, such reflections will not a.s.sist me to finish my causerie, for I wrote them all last week."

"Talking of women," remarked Pitou, "a little blonde has come to live opposite our lodging. So far we have only bowed from our windows, but I have christened her 'Lynette,' and Tricotrin has made a poem about her.

It is pathetic. The last verse--the others are not written yet--goes:

"'O window I watched in the days that are dead, Are you watched by a lover to-day?

Are glimpses caught now of another blonde head By a youth who lives over the way?

Does _she_ repeat words that Lynette's lips have said-- And does _he_ say what _I_ used to say?'"

"What is the answer?" asked de Fronsac. "Is it a conundrum? In any case it is a poor subst.i.tute for a half a column of prose in _La Voix_.

How on earth am I to arrive at the bottom of the page? If I am short in my copy, I shall be short in my rent; if I am short in my rent, I shall be put out of doors; if I am put out of doors, I shall die of exposure.

And much good it will do me that they erect a statue to me in the next generation! Upon my word, I would stand a dinner--at the two-franc place where you may eat all you can hold--if you could give me a subject."

"It happens," said Pitou, "that I can give you a very strange one. As I am going to a foreign land, I have been to the country to bid farewell to my parents; I came across an extraordinary girl."

"One who disliked presents?" inquired de Fronsac.

"I am not jesting. She is a dancer in a travelling circus. The flare and the drum wooed me one night, and I went in. As a circus, well, you may imagine--a tent in a fair. My fauteuil was a plank, and the orchestra surpa.s.sed the worst tortures of the Inquisition. And then, after the decrepit horses, and a mangy lion, a girl came into the ring, with the most marvellous eyes I have ever seen in a human face. They are green eyes, with golden lights in them."

"Really?" murmured the poet. "I have never been loved by a girl who had green eyes with golden lights in them."

"I am glad you have never been loved by this one," returned the composer gravely; "she has a curious history. All her lovers, without exception, have committed suicide."

"What?" said de Fronsac, staring.

"It is very queer. One of them had just inherited a hundred thousand francs--he hanged himself. Another, an author from Italy, took poison, while all Rome was reading his novel. To be infatuated by her is harmless enough, but to win her is invariably fatal within a few weeks.

Some time ago she attached herself to one of the troupe, and soon afterwards he discovered she was deceiving him. He resolved to shoot her. He pointed a pistol at her breast. She simply laughed--and _looked at him_. He turned the pistol on himself, and blew his brains out!"

De Fronsac had already written: "Here is the extraordinary history of a girl whom I discovered in a fair." The next moment:

"But you repeat a rumour," he objected. "_La Voix Parisienne_ has a reputation; odd as the fact may appear to you, people read it. If this is published in _La Voix_ it will attract attention. Soon she will be promoted from a tent in a fair to a stage in Paris. Well, what happens? You tell me she is beautiful, so she will have hundreds of admirers. Among the hundreds there will be one she favours. And then?

Unless he committed suicide in a few weeks, the paper would be proved a liar. I should not be able to sleep of nights for fear he would not kill himself."

"My dear," exclaimed Pitou with emotion, "would I add to your anxieties? Rather than you should be disturbed by anybody's living, let us dismiss the subject, and the dinner, and talk of my new Symphony. On the other hand, I fail to see that the paper's reputation is your affair--it is not your wife; and I am more than usually empty to-day."

"Your argument is sound," said de Fronsac. "Besides, the Editor refuses my poetry." And he wrote without cessation for ten minutes.

The two-franc table-d'hote excelled itself that evening, and Pitou did ample justice to the menu.

Behold how capricious is the jade, Fame! The poet whose verses had left him obscure, accomplished in ten minutes a paragraph that fascinated all Paris. On the morrow people pointed it out to one another; the morning after, other journals referred to it; in the afternoon the Editor of _La Voix Parisienne_ was importuned with questions. No one believed the story to be true, but not a soul could help wondering if it might be so.

When a day or two had pa.s.sed, Pitou received from de Fronsac a note which ran:

"Send to me at once, I entreat thee, the name of that girl, and say where she can be found. The managers of three variety theatres of the first cla.s.s have sought me out and are eager to engage her."

"Decidedly," said Pitou, "I have mistaken my vocation--I ought to have been a novelist!" And he replied:

"The girl whose eyes suggested the story to me is called on the programmes 'Florozonde.' For the rest, I know nothing, except that thou didst offer a dinner and I was hungry."

However, when he had written this, he destroyed it.

"Though I am unappreciated myself, and shall probably conclude in the Morgue," he mused, "that is no excuse for my withholding prosperity from others. Doubtless the poor girl would rejoice to appear at three variety theatres of the first cla.s.s, or even at one of them." He answered simply:

"Her name is 'Florozonde'; she will be found in a circus at Chartres"-- and nearly suffocated with laughter.

Then a little later the papers announced that Mlle. Florozonde--whose love by a strange series of coincidences had always proved fatal--would be seen at La Coupole. Posters bearing the name of "Florozonde"--yellow on black--invaded the boulevards. Her portrait caused crowds to a.s.semble, and "That girl who, they say, deals death, that Florozonde!"

was to be heard as constantly as ragtime.

By now Pitou was at the Hague, his necessities having driven him into the employment of a Parisian who had opened a shop there for the sale of music and French pianos. When he read the Paris papers, Pitou trembled so violently that the onlookers thought he must have ague.

Hilarity struggled with envy in his breast. "Ma foi!" he would say to himself, "it seems that my destiny is to create successes for others.

Here am I, exiled, and condemned to play cadenzas all day in a piano warehouse, while she whom I invented, dances jubilant in Paris. I do not doubt that she breakfasts at Armenonville, and dines at Paillard's."