"No, monsieur, you may not. You criticise my conduct! But if I choose, monsieur, I should have to say but a word to make you blush for yours; to force you to lower your crest before me and ask my pardon for all your impertinence."

Monsieur de Mardeille stared at her and stammered:

"I don't understand a word of what you say, mademoiselle. If you would explain yourself a little more clearly----"

"It doesn't suit me to do so at this moment; but, never fear, you won't lose anything by waiting."

The neighbor took his hat to go, saying to himself:

"I won't lose anything? That's a question. I am very much afraid I shall have nothing to show for my brooch. If I dared, I'd ask her to give it back; but I don't dare, especially as I have an idea that she wouldn't do it. This little vixen holds me in awe; she has such a way of speaking, such a decided tone! What an idiot I have been! This will teach me to make sacrifices for women!"

He turned to Georgette, and with a curt nod to her left the room, infinitely less radiant than he had been in the morning, and muttering between his teeth:

"Twelve thousand francs! a little shirtmaker! What are we coming to?

Great G.o.d! what are we coming to?"

XVII

A PARCEL

For a week following this interview, the tenant of the first floor front was in an unapproachable humor. He went in and out at all hours of the day, scolded his servant, ate hardly anything, slept badly, and did not once go to the windows looking on the courtyard. One day Frontin attempted to speak of the young tenant of the entresol; but his master abruptly interposed, saying:

"If you so much as refer to the shirtmaker, if you venture to repeat a single word relating to her, I'll put you out of doors with a kick--you know where!"

But at the end of the week, Monsieur de Mardeille, alarmed by his loss of appet.i.te and his inability to sleep, and observing in dismay that his rosy, smiling face was a.s.suming the semblance of a baked apple, that his brow was becoming wrinkled and his cheeks sunken, and that, if that sort of thing continued, he would soon appear at least as old as he really was, said to himself:

"Things can't go on like this! I try to divert my thoughts, and I can't do it! I pay court to other women, they welcome me with open arms, yet I don't go back to them! The image of that little Georgette is always before my eyes! I see her going back and forth in her chamber, in her jacket and short skirt. Her voluptuous shape turns my head! Decidedly I am mad over that girl. And after all, I should be a great fool to pine away with longing, when it is in my power to be that girl's happy lover!

I know what it will cost me. But, still, twelve thousand francs won't ruin me; especially as she said in so many words that she would not ask for anything more after that. And there are women who ask all the time.

You don't give them so much at one time, but it amounts to the same thing, indeed it costs more in the end!"

While making these reflections, Monsieur de Mardeille walked about the room, and finally said to Frontin:

"Frontin, is it long since you met our little neighbor?"

The valet, recalling his master's prohibition, stared at him in amazement, and then replied:

"Madame Picotee? No; I met her in the courtyard no longer ago than this morning."

"What's that? who said anything about Madame Picotee, you idiot? Didn't I say our little neighbor? What do you suppose I care for that old party? I am talking about the girl on the entresol, the charming Georgette."

When he heard the pretty shirtmaker's name, Frontin said to himself:

"This is a test; monsieur forbade me to speak of her; he is trying to test me."

Whereupon he put a finger to his lip and turned to his master, shaking his head and laughing, as if to say:

"Not such a fool as you think!"

And Monsieur de Mardeille, thoroughly out of patience, shook his servant's arm, crying:

"Will you answer me, you clown?"

"You forbade me to mention the young girl on the entresol, monsieur."

"I retract that order, numskull!"

"Oh! I couldn't guess that!"

"I want you to mention her now, and to tell me everything you know about her. And you must know something, for you're always in the concierge's lodge."

"Bless me! monsieur, it's the same old story: Monsieur Bistelle keeps sending Mamzelle Georgette bouquets and billets-doux, begging her to receive him; but, _nisco!_ she won't receive him, and she sends back his billets-doux."

"Really? Georgette refuses to receive that fellow? That's good! She received me; and my neighbor is rich and must have made her handsome offers! So she gave me the preference; therefore she must have a penchant for me! She resists me only because she's got that wretched notion of dread of possible results in her head. But I am preferred; therefore she loves me; it's just the same thing. Is that all you know, Frontin?"

"Oh! the gentleman--the old bachelor, Monsieur Renardin, has been trying to send something else to our little neighbor. He ordered a superb Savoy biscuit. I don't know how Mademoiselle Arthemise found out about it, but she did. So then she did sentry duty in the concierge's lodge, and stopped the pastry cook's boy as he pa.s.sed, got possession of the Savoy biscuit, hollowed it out, and put it on her head, so that she looked like a Turk. She went all over the house with the biscuit on her head, and waited on her master at dinner that way. He happened to have company, too!"

"That was well done! Think of that man flattering himself that he could seduce her with biscuits! What a jacka.s.s!"

Monsieur de Mardeille went to the window and raised the curtain.

Georgette was in her usual place, and seemed to him even more seductive than ever. He feared that she might be offended with him; however, he could not resist the desire to open the window and seat himself at it; then he watched for a glance from her. It was not long before she raised her eyes in his direction; whereupon he made her a low bow, to which she replied by a most affable smile. He was enchanted, radiant; he pa.s.sed an hour at the window; and Georgette looked at him and smiled several times.

"She isn't angry; she will receive me kindly--I saw that in her eyes,"

he said to himself. "Yes, I can call on her without fear. True; but if I don't follow out her suggestion, I shall not make any progress."

The day pa.s.sed, and Monsieur de Mardeille had been unable to decide what course to pursue. He went to his desk several times, looked through his cashbox, counted the banknotes, gazed at them with a sigh, then restored them to their place. Love and avarice were fighting a battle to the death in his heart, and his long-standing habits were being subjected to a cruel shock.

The next day he was still wavering, hesitating, unable to decide upon any plan, when Frontin suddenly came to him and said:

"Do come and look out of the window, monsieur; Mamzelle Georgette is in the courtyard, pumping; if you could see how gracefully she pumps!"

"Yes, yes, let's see that!"

Our lover hastened to take his place at a window that overlooked the pump. Georgette was there, in the little petticoat that clung about her hips; and the exercise of pumping developed all her good points most happily. Did the girl suspect it? Probably, for she seemed to take pleasure in what is to most people tiresome labor.

Monsieur de Mardeille, having gazed for several minutes at the animated picture before him, hurried to his cashbox and took out a bundle of banknotes. His hesitation was at an end; he stuffed them hastily into a wallet, which he put in his pocket; then, making a rapid toilet, he left his room and betook himself to Georgette's apartment, saying to himself, like Caesar as he pa.s.sed the Rubicon: "_Alea jacta est!_"

The young shirtmaker had hardly time enough to leave the pump, reach her room, and resume her work, ere she saw Monsieur de Mardeille enter, eager, agitated, and throbbing with hope. He rushed toward Georgette, took a seat near her, and said:

"My dear little neighbor, I have come to ask your pardon----"

"My pardon! Why, I have no recollection that you have offended me, monsieur."

"Oh! yes, yes! The last time that I was here I said things to you that I shouldn't have said."

"If you did, monsieur, I have forgotten them."