"Ah, messieurs! is it the way to reconciliation and love to go at it in hot blood and hard words? Take a little time,--there is plenty and to spare. Anger never settles anything. Sit down, monsieur, will you not? Why, Monsieur Jean! Will you not offer your father a chair? And remember, he is your father, monsieur. Remember that before you speak.

It is easy to say hard words, but the cure is slow and difficult, messieurs. Why not deliberate and reason without anger?"

As she talked she placed chairs, towards one of which she gently urged Marot senior. Then she insisted upon taking his hat. A man with his hat off is not so easily roused to anger as he is with it on, nor can one maintain his resentment at the highest pitch while sitting down.

There was this much gained by Mlle. Fouchette's diplomacy.

But the first glance about the room restored the father's belligerency. He saw the elaborately laid table, the flowers, the wine----

"I am honored, monsieur," he said to his son, sarcastically, "though I had no idea that you expected me."

"It is--er--I had a friend----"

"Oh! I know quite well I have no reason to antic.i.p.ate such a royal welcome. Yet there are three plates----"

"That was for Fouchette," said Jean, hastily and unthinkingly. "You will be welcome at my humble table, father."

"Fouchette,"--he had noticed the glance at the girl, now making a pretence of arranging the table,--"and so this is Fouchette, eh? And your humble table, eh?"

The irascible old gentleman regarded both of the adjuncts of life de garcon with a bitter smile. Still it was something like a smile, and the girl was quick to take advantage of it.

"Oh, this is a special occasion, monsieur,--a reconciliation dinner."

"A reconciliation dinner, eh?" growled the old man, suspicious of some sly allusion to himself and son. "And will you be good enough to speak for this dummy here and inform me who is to be reconciled and what the devil you've got to do with the operation?"

"To be sure!" cried Mlle. Fouchette, with affected gayety. "Only I must begin at the last first. I'm the next-door neighbor of Monsieur Jean, your son, and I take care of his rooms for him--for a consideration. My appartement is over there, monsieur, if you please.

We are poor, but we must eat----"

"And drink champagne," put in the elder Marot, significantly.

"Is not champagne more fitting for the reconciliation of two men who were once friends than would be violent words?" she asked, with spirit.

"Who pays for it? It depends upon who pays for it!" He tried to ward off the conclusion by hurling this at both of them.

Jean reddened. He knew quite well the insinuation. It is not an unusual thing for Frenchmen to live on the product of a woman's shame.

"As if you should ask me if I were a thief, father!" protested the young man, now scarcely able to restrain his tears.

"And as if we had not pinched and saved and economized and all that!

And can you look around you and not see that?" She had hard work to smother her indignation.

"Come to the point!" retorted the elder Marot, impatiently. "The woman! Where is the woman?"

Jean reddened more furiously and was more confused than before.

"It can't be this--this"--he regarded the slender, girlish figure contemptuously--"this grisette menagere! You are not such a fool as to----"

"Oh! no, no, no, no!" hastily interrupted Mlle. Fouchette, with great agitation. "Oh, no, monsieur! Think not that! She is an angel! I am nothing to him,--nothing! Only a poor little friend,--a servant, monsieur,--one who wishes him well and would do and give anything to see him happy! Nothing more, monsieur, I a.s.sure you! I--mon Dieu!

nothing more!"

There was almost a wail in her last note of too much protestation.

Both father and son scrutinized her attentively, while the color came and went in her now downcast face,--the one with a puzzled astonishment, the other with surprised alarm.

And both understood.

Not being himself a lover, the elder Marot divined at once what Jean, with all his opportunities, had till now failed to discover.

Another pull at the bell came like a gift from heaven to momentarily relieve poor little Fouchette of her embarra.s.sment.

Jean started nervously to his feet, in sympathy with her intelligence, but by no means relieved in mind.

"It is Lerouge," he said, desperately. "Attend, Fouchette!"

The father glanced from one to the other quickly, inquiringly.

"Lerouge?"

"Yes, father,--it is he,--the friend--whom we--whom I expect--to whom I owe reparation----"

The two men studied each other in silence for the few seconds that followed, and Jean saw something like aroused curiosity and wonderment in his father's face,--something that had suddenly taken the place of anger.

Mlle. Fouchette had antic.i.p.ated the coming of Lerouge with quite a different sentiment to that which overpowered Jean. The latter saw in it only the ruin of his most cherished hopes. Fouchette, on the other hand, with the quicker and surer intuition of the woman, believed the time now ripe for the reconciliation of not only Jean and Lerouge, but of father and son. It would be impossible for Jean and his father to quarrel before this third party. Time would be gained. And then, were not the two affairs one? The straightening out of the tangle between the friends must carry with it the better understanding between Jean and his father.

As to herself, the girl had not one thought. She was completely lifted out of self,--carried away with the intentness of her solicitude for Jean's future.

The situation appealed to her sharpest instincts. Its possibilities pa.s.sed through her alert mind before she had reached the door.

Glorified in her purpose, she flung it wide open.

She was confronted by two persons,--the one bowing, hat in hand; the other smiling, radiantly beautiful.

Mlle. Fouchette stood for a moment like one suddenly turned to stone.

This was more than she had bargained for. She leaned against the wall instinctively, as if needing more substantial support than her limbs.

Her throat seemed parched, so that when she would have spoken the result was merely a spasmodic gasp. Even the friendly semi-darkness of the little antechamber failed to hide her confusion from her visitors.

Then, recovering her self-possession by a violent effort, she reopened the inner door and announced, feebly,--

"Monsieur Lerouge,--Mademoiselle Remy!"

CHAPTER XXI

Fortunately for Mlle. Fouchette, Jean's astonishment and temporary confusion at the unexpected apparition of the angel of his dreams extinguished every other consideration.

Mlle. Remy stood before him--in his appartement--smiling, gracious, a picture of feminine youth and loveliness,--her earnest blue eyes looking straight into his l.u.s.trous brown ones, searching, penetrante!

He forgot Fouchette; he forgot his friend Henri; he forgot even the presence of an angry father.