CHAPTER IV.

PRADELINE.

Gonthram Neroweg, Count of Plouernel, occupied a cosy little house on Paradis-Poissonniere Street, built by his own grandfather. The somewhat _rococo_ elegance of the establishment suggested it must have been constructed about the middle of the last century, and had done service as a city residence. The quarter of the Poissonnieres, or Fish-markets, as the neighborhood was called in the days of the Regency, but now almost deserted, was perfectly appropriate for those mysterious retreats that are devoted to the cult of Venus Aphrodite.

The Count of Plouernel was breakfasting _tete-a-tete_ with a pretty girl of about twenty years--a brunette, lively and laughterful, who had been surnamed Pradeline because of her readiness, at the suppers of which she always was the soul and often the queen also, in improvising upon all imaginable subjects, ditties that the celebrated improviser, whose name she bore with a feminine termination, would surely not have cared to father, but which had at least the redeeming feature of lacking neither in point nor in mirthfulness.

The Count of Plouernel, having heard speak of Pradeline, invited her to sup the previous night with him and some of his friends. After the supper, which was prolonged until three in the morning, the right of hospitality for the night had been earned by the girl. After the hospitality came breakfast the following morning. The two companions were, accordingly, at table in a little boudoir fitted out in Louis XV style, and contiguous to the bed chamber. A good fire blazed in the marble-tipped hearth. Thick curtains of light blue damask, covered with roses, softened the glare of the daylight. Flowers filled large porcelain vases. The atmosphere was warm and perfumed. The wines were choice, the dishes toothsome. Pradeline and the Count of Plouernel were doing honor to both.

The colonel was a man of about thirty-eight years of age--tall, and at once lithe and robust. His face, though rather haggard, on that morning, was of a species of bold beauty, and strongly betrayed his German or Frankish stock, the characteristic traits of which Tacitus and Caesar frequently described. His hair was light blonde, his moustache long and reddish, his eyes light grey, and his nose hooked like an eagle's beak.

Wrapped in a costly morning gown, the Count of Plouernel seemed no less hilarious than the young girl.

"Come, Pradeline," said he, pouring out to her a gla.s.s of generous old Burgundy wine, "to the health of your lover."

"Nonsense! Do you think I keep a lover?"

"You are right. To the health of your lovers!"

"You don't seem to be jealous, darling!"

"And you?"

At this question Pradeline nonchalantly opened her red corsage, and clinking her gla.s.s with the blade of her knife she answered the Count of Plouernel with an improvisation to the tune then in vogue of _La Rifla_:

"For ague-cheeked Sir Fidelity I only have duplicity.

When some gay lover pleases me, 'Tis quickly done! He pleases me-- La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla, La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla."

"Bravo, my dear!" cried the colonel, laughing boisterously.

And joining in chorus with Pradeline, he sang, also clinking his gla.s.s with the edge of his knife:

"When some gay lover pleases me, 'Tis quickly done! He pleases me.

La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla, La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla."

"And now, my little girl," he proceeded to say at the close of the refrain, "since you are not jealous, give me some advice--some friendly advice. I am in love--desperately in love."

"Is it possible!"

"If she were a woman of the world I would not ask your advice, but--"

"Well! Well! Am I, perchance, not a woman? and of the world, too?"

"Of all the world, not true, my dear?"

"Naturally, seeing I'm here--which is little to your credit, my dear, and less creditable to me. But that matters not. Proceed, and don't be rude again--if you can avoid it."

"Oh! The little one gives me a lesson in politeness!"

"You want my advice; you see I can give you lessons. Proceed, what have you to say?"

"You must know I am in love with a shop-girl, that is to say, her father and mother keep a shop. You surely know the ways of such folks, their customs and habits. What means would you advise me to employ in order to succeed?"

"Make yourself beloved."

"That takes too long. When a violent fancy seizes me, I find it impossible to wait."

"Indeed! 'Tis wonderful, but, darling, you interest me greatly. Let's see. First of all is the shop-girl poor? Is she in great want? Does she seem very hungry?"

"How? Whether she is hungry? What the devil do you mean?"

"Colonel, I can not deny your personal attractions--you're handsome, you're brilliant, you're charming, you're adorable, you're delicious--"

"Irony?"

"What do you think! Would I dare to? Well, as I was saying, you're delicious! But, in order for the poor girl to appreciate you duly, she must first be dying of hunger. You have no idea how hunger--helps to find people adorable."

Whereupon Pradeline sailed in to improvise a new ditty, not, this time, in merry vein, but with marked bitterness, and keeping time with such a slow measure that her favorite tune sounded melancholic:

"You're hungry and you weep, Come, maid, and fall asleep; Come, you'll have plenty of gold, Thyself to me be sold.

La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla--"

"The devil take that song! This one is not at all jolly," remarked the Count of Plouernel, struck by the melancholic accents of the young girl, who, however, quickly resumed her reckless bearing and wonted cheerfulness. "I understand the allusion," he added; "but my pretty shop-girl is not hungry."

"The next thing--is she coquettish? Does she love to be prinked? Does she like jewelry, or theaters? These are famous means to blast a poor girl."

"I presume she likes all those things. But she has a father and mother, and they probably keep a close watch over her. In view of all this I had a plan--"

"You? At last you have a plan of your own! And what is it?"

"It is to make frequent and large purchases in that shop, even to loan them money at a pinch, because I know those small traders must ever be hard pushed for cash to pay their bills."

"In other words, you believe they will be ready to sell you their daughter--for cash?"

"No; but I figure that they will at least shut their eyes--I would then be able to dazzle the minx with presents, and proceed rapidly to my goal. Well, how does my plan strike you?"

"I'll be blown! How can I tell?" answered Pradeline, affecting innocence. "If things are done in your upper world in that manner, if parents sell their daughters, perhaps the thing is done in the same way among the poorer folks. Still, I don't believe it. These people are too bourgeois, they are too n.i.g.g.ardly, you see?"

"My little girl," said the Count of Plouernel haughtily, "you are emanc.i.p.ating yourself prodigiously."

At this reproach the young girl broke out with a peal of laughter, which she interrupted to sing in merry notes this new improvisation:

"O! See that bold signor, So full of pride, honor?

To such a haughty flea All bourgeois bend the knee!