VIII

AN EXPEDIENT

"At last I was alone with that pretty girl. I need not tell you, messieurs, that I became loving, eloquent, urgent. Mademoiselle Mignonne laughed at everything I said; but it pleased her. As a general rule, when that sort of thing doesn't please a woman, she doesn't listen to the man who tries it on. As soon as we are listened to, we can be sure of triumphing. I requested an a.s.signation. She refused; but I declared that I would come to Sceaux every day; to which she replied that she could not prevent my meeting her.

"To make a long story short, messieurs, I met Mignonne the next day, and the next, and every day that week. I spent a good deal in railroad fares; but one must be willing to sow if he would reap.

"After ten or twelve days, I had completely turned the girl's head, and I persuaded her to go with me to Paris, where I promised her a brilliant existence, pleasure by the wholesale, and, above all, a never-ending love. Mademoiselle Mignonne set great store by that, I a.s.sure you. She was a romantic maiden. But it costs us men nothing to promise, you know! I am not sure, indeed, that I didn't mention marriage; but I think not.

"It all resulted in a little fifth-floor room, under the eaves, in a house on Rue de Menilmontant. I furnished it with whatever was necessary, nothing more, and covered the walls with paper at twelve sous the roll. I must confess that my love was not exacting; she desired neither a palace, nor a cashmere shawl, nor a carriage; my presence--that was all that was necessary to satisfy her.

"That state of affairs lasted for several months. At the end of that time, I would have been very glad to be rid of my conquest; I had had enough of her. If she had been sensible, I would have said to her, frankly:

"'My dear girl, I did love you, but I don't love you any more. It was sure to come, sooner or later; liaisons like ours never last very long; it's all the same, whether we make an end of it now, or six months hence. Make another acquaintance, or return to Sceaux, as you please; for my part, I have the honor to bid you good-day.'

"But, as I said, I had to do with a young woman who had never thoroughly understood Paris and the Parisians, but who had seen them through a miraculous prism. Moreover, she proved to have a strength of character which astonished me. She had honestly believed that I would never leave her. You will say, perhaps, that it was in my power to cease going to see her; but, unluckily, at the beginning of our liaison, I had been idiotic enough to take her to my lodgings, and to show her the shop in which I am a partner; so if I had let a day or two pa.s.s without seeing her, what would have happened? Why, she would have come after me, either at my lodgings or at my shop; and that would have led to a very annoying scene, especially as my partner is almost as ridiculous as Monsieur Faisande, and believes me to be a perfect Cato.

"So there was nothing for me to do but break with my girl in such a way as effectually to take away the desire to hunt me up in my own quarters.

A confidential disclosure which she made to me intensified my longing to put an end to the connection: she informed me that she bore a pledge of our love. Fancy me with a woman and child on my hands!--d.a.m.nation, messieurs! put yourselves in my place."

Monsieur Fouvenard paused to look at us all. But no one answered; and he continued, evidently surprised by the profound silence and the almost stern expression of his hearers:

"So I looked about for an opportunity to break with her; what I needed was a tempestuous, violent scene, for a German quarrel would not have sufficed to part us.--I had then and still have a friend, a fellow who is very enterprising with the fair s.e.x, and almost as fascinating as myself. That is saying a good deal, perhaps, but it's true. You must have heard of him: his name is Rambertin, and he is a commercial traveller who has left Ariadnes in all the places he ever visited. I had met him several times, in the early days of my liaison with Mignonne, when I took my love to Mabille or the Chateau-Rouge. He had found the young lady of Sceaux much to his taste. One day, meeting me when I was alone and rather depressed, he asked me what I had done with my _blondinette_.

"'Parbleu!' said I; 'I would to G.o.d I had nothing more to do with her!

If you could rid me of her, you would do me a very great favor.'

"'Are you speaking seriously?' cried Rambertin.

"'Most seriously.'

"'Then it's a bargain.'

"'But you don't know that Mignonne adores me; what you must do is to arrange matters so that I can break with her.'

"Rambertin began to laugh and rub his hands.

"'It seems to me,' he said, 'that I've a longer head than you; for when it's a matter of breaking off a liaison, I can always think of ten ways to do it. Of course, you go to see your fair whenever you choose; and you probably have a key to her room, so that you can go in when she's in bed?'

"'That is true.'

"'Give me your key. To-morrow I will have one like it, and the thing will go of itself.'

"The next day, Rambertin had a key like the one I had loaned him, which he returned to me, saying:

"'I know where the lady lives. It's a house where there's a concierge with five cats; but I am about your size, I'll cover my face with my cloak, and this very night I'll sleep in Mignonne's room. I fancy that she sleeps without a light. I will act so cautiously that she will not suspect that another man is occupying your place. You must come there early to-morrow morning; you have your key, so you can come in and surprise me reposing beside your charmer. I should say that you would have the right to lose your head then, call her a faithless hussy, and drop her.'

"I considered it a magnificent plan, and it was put in execution.

Rambertin is audacious beyond description. Everything succeeded as we hoped. I went to Mignonne's room very early the next morning. She was still asleep beside my subst.i.tute, suspecting nothing. And Rambertin too pretended to be asleep. But I was no sooner in the room than I made a great outcry. I called Mignonne faithless, perjured--Oh! messieurs, if you could have seen the girl's amazement and horror! I a.s.sure you, it was an intensely dramatic picture. She declared that she was not guilty, that she was the victim of a detestable piece of treachery. She tried to throw herself at my feet, to force me to listen to her. But as I was not at all anxious that she should justify herself, I left the room, shouting that all was over between us.

"I confess that I was afraid that Mignonne would try to see me again, that she would waylay me somewhere, to try again to convince me of her innocence; but several days pa.s.sed, and I heard nothing of her. At last, I met Rambertin.

"'Well,' I said, 'the _blondinette_ seems to have been consoled very quickly; you couldn't have had much difficulty in making her listen to reason.'

"'You're devilishly mistaken,' he replied; 'on the contrary, your Mignonne is a young woman who refuses to be tamed. At first, being persuaded that you believed her guilty, she was determined to go after you, to dog your steps and compel you to listen to her. Faith! my dear fellow, when I saw how it was, I just simply confessed our little scheme to bring about a rupture between you two. The effect of that confession was most extraordinary. At first, the girl refused to believe me, but I proved to her that I was telling the truth: I had a little note from you, telling me at what cafe I could find you, to return the key of Mignonne's room. I showed her that note, and she could have no further doubt. She said just this: "The infamous villain!" Not another word about going after you. "Now," says I to myself, "she's at odds with him for good and all; I must try to obtain my pardon." And I tried to make her understand that I had loved her for a long while, and that only the intensity of my pa.s.sion could have induced me to second you in that affair. But Mademoiselle Mignonne, without deigning to reply to my entreaties, pointed to the door and said:

"'"Leave this room, monsieur, and never let me see your face again, or I will go to the magistrate and tell him of your shameful conduct."

"'I tried in vain to make her understand that the night we had pa.s.sed together gave me some rights over her; the fair Mignonne was immovable.

I tried to steal a kiss; she shrieked so loud that the neighbors came to their windows. And so, faith! I went away; but let her do what she will, I'll bide my time, I'll seize the first favorable opportunity, and we won't stop where we are!'

"Such, messieurs, was Rambertin's story, and that is how I broke off my liaison with the damsel of Sceaux. Don't you think the method I resorted to was very ingenious? I'll wager that you'll bear it in mind, in order to make use of it on occasion!"

Monsieur Fouvenard looked at us, one after another, as if he expected compliments and congratulations; but, on the contrary, n.o.body spoke, and almost every face had a.s.sumed a serious expression. Indeed, there were some faces on which he seemed to detect something more than mere seriousness; for, I am happy to say, his narrative found no sympathy among us.

As for myself, I had always felt a sort of repulsion for that young man, a repulsion of the sort that one cannot describe, but that one often feels for a certain person. At that moment, I was gratified to think that I had always disliked a man capable of such dastardly, vile behavior as he boasted of in connection with that poor girl from Sceaux.

The portrait he had drawn of Mignonne interested and touched me; and it seemed to me that I should like to know her, and to avenge her for the infamous way in which she had been victimized.

Dupreval, who had observed the unpleasant impression produced by the bearded man's tale, and who, presumably, was not proud of having that individual for his guest, was the first to speak.

"It has taken you a long while, Fouvenard," he said, in an almost harsh tone, "to compose the anecdote you have just told us; but, frankly, you would have done as well to keep silent instead of regaling us with that tale of seduction, the denouement of which may be worthy of the Regency, but is not at all suited to our code of morals; for nowadays, when a man desires to leave a mistress, it is no longer necessary to degrade her, to throw her into his friend's arms. Those are old-fashioned methods, which you have read about in some old memoirs of Cardinal Dubois's time; but, I say again, you were not happy in your choice of events."

"What's that! old-fashioned methods!" cried Fouvenard, running his hands through his hair--a favorite gesture of his, especially when he desired to be impressive, to produce an effect; and it did, in fact, make him a few lines taller by making his hair stand up for the moment. "I have invented nothing, messieurs. I have told the story exactly as it happened. Anyone who doubts it has only to call on Mademoiselle Mignonne, No. 80, Rue de Menilmontant,--that is, if she still lives there,--and it is probable that she will give him a ma.s.s of details concerning her perfidious Ernest, which I have forgotten. Ernest is my Christian name, messieurs, and that is what she always called me. It is possible that my story shocks you; but, at all events, it's all one to me. I snap my fingers at your displeasure! You make me laugh, with your long, solemn faces! I take reproofs from no one; the man who chooses to administer one has only to speak--I am ready to answer him."

"Oh! messieurs! pray beware!" cried Balloquet, with a laugh. "I warn you that Fouvenard is extremely quarrelsome in his cups. Three or four more gla.s.ses of champagne, and he's just the boy to defy us all!"

"I beg you not to make fun of me, Balloquet."

"Ah! the boar is bristling up."

"Monsieur," said I, irritated by Fouvenard's tone and manner, "if you pride yourself on your adventure with this village girl of Sceaux, I fancy that we, on our side, are at liberty to condemn it. It is quite possible that that makes no difference to you. For my own part, I declare that I have deceived many women, but I would never have resorted to such methods as yours to break with them."

"Parbleu! monsieur, perhaps you don't need to take much trouble to induce your mistresses to leave you."

"Frankly, I should prefer that to your expedients; the man who is deceived is often more interesting than the deceiver."

"And you have often been in that interesting position?"

Dupreval put an end to our dispute by rising.

"Messieurs," he said, "I beg you once more to receive my farewell greeting as a bachelor."

We all rose to shake hands with our host. I observed then that Dumouton took the longest road, for he made the circuit of the table. But he had long had his eye on some superb pears which had not been touched; and, as he pa.s.sed them, he seized two, which he succeeded, not without difficulty, in stuffing into his pockets, thereby producing the effect of two miniature balloons on his hips; and as they raised the skirts of his coat, they disclosed the fact that the seat of his trousers was of a different color from the front.