"If only he had taken me with him!"

"But, dear Mme. Fleurette, he could not expose you to the hardships of travel. You, who are as fragile as a cobweb, how could you go to Patagonia or Senegal or Baltimore, those wild places where there are no comforts for women? You must be reasonable. I am sure you will get a letter soon--or else in a day or two he will come, with his good, honest face as if nothing had occurred--these English are like that--and call for whisky and soda. Be comforted, _chere pet.i.te madame_."

Aristide did his best to comfort her, threw her in the companionship of decent women staying at the hotel, and devoted his evenings to her entertainment. But the days pa.s.sed, and Reginald Batterby, with the good, honest face, neither wrote nor ordered whisky and soda. Fleurette began to pine and fade.

One day she came to Aristide.

"M. Pujol, I have no more money left."

"_Bigre!_" said Pujol. "The good Bocardon will have to give you credit.

I'll arrange it."

"But I already owe for three weeks," said Fleurette.

Aristide sought Bocardon. One week more was all the latter dared allow.

"But her husband will return and pay you. He is my old and intimate friend. I make myself hoa.r.s.e in telling it to you, wooden-head that you are!"

But Bocardon, who had to account to higher powers, the proprietors of the hotel, was helpless. At the end of the week Fleurette was called upon to give up her room. She wept with despair; Aristide wept with fury; Bocardon wept out of sympathy. Already, said Bocardon, the proprietors would blame him for not using the legal right to detain madame's luggage.

"_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_ what is to become of me?" wailed Fleurette.

"You forget, madame," said Aristide, with one of his fine flourishes, "that you are the sacred trust of Aristide Pujol."

"But I can't accept your money," objected Fleurette.

"_Tron de l'air!_" he cried. "Did your husband put you in my charge or did he not? Am I your legal guardian, or am I not? If I am your legal guardian, what right have you to question the arrangements made by your husband? Answer me that."

Fleurette, too gentle and too miserable for intricate argument, sighed.

"But it is your money, all the same."

Aristide turned to Bocardon. "Try," said he, "to convince a woman! Do you want proofs? Wait there a minute while I get them from the safe of the Agence Pujol."

He disappeared into the bureau, where, secure from observation, he tore an oblong strip from a sheet of stiff paper, and, using an indelible pencil, wrote out something fantastic halfway between a cheque and a bill of exchange, forged as well as he could from memory the signature of Reginald Batterby--the imitation of handwriting was one of Aristide's many odd accomplishments--and made the doc.u.ment look legal by means of a receipt stamp, which he took from Bocardon's drawer. He returned to the vestibule with the strip folded and somewhat crumpled in his hand.

"_Voila_," said he, handing it boldly to Fleurette. "Here is your husband's guarantee to me, your guardian, for four thousand francs."

Fleurette examined the forgery. The stamp impressed her. For the simple souls of France there is magic in _papier timbre_.

"It was my husband who wrote this?" she asked, curiously.

"_Mais, oui_," said Aristide, with an offended air of challenge.

Fleurette's eyes filled again with tears.

"I only inquired," she said, "because this is the first time I have seen his handwriting."

"_Ma pauvre pet.i.te_," said Aristide.

"I will do whatever you tell me, M. Pujol," said Fleurette, humbly.

"Good! That is talking like _une bonne pet.i.te dame raisonnable_. Now, I know a woman made up of holy bread whom St. Paul and St. Peter are fighting to have next them when she goes to Paradise. Her name is Mme.

Bidoux, and she sells cabbages and asparagus and charcoal at No. 213 bis, Rue Saint-Honore. She will arrange our little affair. Bocardon, will you have madame's trunks sent to that address?"

He gave his arm to Fleurette, and walked out of the hotel, with serene confidence in the powers of the sainted Mme. Bidoux. Fleurette accompanied him unquestioningly. Of course she might have said: "If you hold negotiable security from my husband to the amount of four thousand francs, why should I exchange the comforts of the hotel for the doubtful accommodation of the sainted Mme. Bidoux who sells cabbages?" But I repeat that Fleurette was a simple soul who took for granted the wisdom of so flamboyant and virile a creature as Aristide Pujol.

Away up at the top of No. 213 bis, Rue Saint-Honore, was a little furnished room to let, and there Aristide installed his sacred charge.

Mme. Bidoux, who, as she herself maintained, would have cut herself into four pieces for Aristide--did he not save her dog's life? Did he not marry her daughter to the brigadier of gendarmes (_sale voyou!_), who would otherwise have left her lamenting? Was he not the most wonderful of G.o.d's creatures?--Mme. Bidoux, although not quite appreciating Aristide's quixotic delicacy, took the forlorn and fragile wisp of misery to her capacious bosom. She made her free of the cabbages and charcoal. She provided her, at a risible charge, with succulent meals.

She told her tales of her father and mother, of her neighbours, of the domestic differences between the concierge and his wife (soothing idyll for an Ariadne!), of the dirty thief of a brigadier of gendarmes, of her bodily ailments--her body was so large that they were many; of the picturesque death, through apoplexy, of the late M. Bidoux; the brave woman, in short, gave her of her heart's best. As far as human hearts could provide a bed for Fleurette, that bed was of roses. As a matter of brutal fact, it was narrow and nubbly, and the little uncarpeted room was ten feet by seven; but to provide it Aristide went to his own bed hungry. And if the bed of a man's hunger is not to be accounted as one of roses, there ought to be a vote for the reduction of the Recording Angel's salary.

It must not be imagined that Fleurette thought the bed hard. Her bed of life from childhood had been nubbly. She never dreamed of complaining of her little room under the stars, and she sat among the cabbages like a tired lily, quite contented with her material lot. But she drooped and drooped, and the cough returned and shook her; and Aristide, realizing the sacredness of his charge, became a prey to anxious terrors.

"Mere Bidoux," said he, "she must have lots of good, nourishing, tender, underdone beef, good fillets, and _entrecotes saignantes_."

Mme. Bidoux sighed. She had a heart, but she also had a pocket which, like Aristide's, was not over-filled. "That costs dear, my poor friend,"

she said.

"What does it matter what it costs? It is I who provide," said Aristide, grandly.

And Aristide gave up tobacco and coffee and the mild refreshment at cafes essential to the existence of every Frenchman, and degraded his soul by taking half-franc tips from tourists--a source of income which, as Director, M. le Directeur, Herr Direktor of the Agence Pujol, he had hitherto scorned haughtily--in order to provide Fleurette with underdone beefsteaks.

All his leisure he devoted to her. She represented something that hitherto had not come into his life--something delicate, tender, ethereal, something of woman that was exquisitely adorable, apart from the flesh. Once, as he was sitting in the little shop, she touched his temple lightly with her fingers.

"Ah, you are good to me, Aristide."

He felt a thrill such as no woman's touch had ever caused to pa.s.s through him--far, far sweeter, cleaner, purer. If the _bon Dieu_ could have given her to him then and there to be his wife, what bond could have been holier? But he had bound himself by a sacred obligation. His friend on his return should find him loyal.

"Who could help being good to you, little Fleurette?" said he. "Even an Apache would not tread on a lily of the valley!"

"But you put me in water and tend me so carefully."

"So that you can be fresh whenever the dear Reginald comes back."

She sighed. "Tell me what I can do for you, my good Aristide."

"Keep well and happy and be a valiant little woman," said he.

Fleurette tried hard to be valiant; but the effort exhausted her strength. As the days went on, even Aristide's inexhaustible conversation failed to distract her from brooding. She lost the trick of laughter. In the evenings, when he was most with her, she would sit, either in the shop or in the little room at the back, her blue childish eyes fixed on him wistfully. At first he tried to lure her into the gay street; but walking tired her. He encouraged her to sit outside on the pavement of the Rue Saint-Honore and join with Mme. Bidoux in the gossip of neighbours; but she listened to them with uncomprehending ears. In despair Aristide, to coax a smile from her lips, practised his many queer accomplishments. He conjured with cards; he juggled with oranges; he had a mountebank's trick of putting one leg round his neck; he imitated the voices of cats and pigs and ducks, till Mme. Bidoux held her sides with mirth. He spent time and thought in elaborating what he called _bonnes farces_, such as dressing himself up in Mme. Bidoux's raiment and personifying a crabbed customer.

Fleurette smiled but listlessly at all these comicalities.

One day she was taken ill. A doctor, summoned, said many learned words which Aristide and Mme. Bidoux tried hard to understand.

"But, after all, what is the matter with her?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARISTIDE PRACTISED HIS MANY QUEER ACCOMPLISHMENTS]

"She has no strength to struggle. She wants happiness."