"Where did you get this, Mere Bidoux?"

"Where I got many more. In your drawer. The letters you were saving for this infamous scoundrel. I wanted to know what she had written to him."

"Mere Bidoux!" cried Aristide. "Those letters were sacred!"

"Bah!" said Mme. Bidoux, unabashed. "There is nothing sacred to a sapper or an old grandmother who loves an imbecile. I have read the letters, _et voila, et voila, et voila!_" And she emptied her pockets of all the letters, minus the envelopes, that Fleurette had written.

And, after one swift glance at the first letter, Aristide had no compunction in reading. They were all addressed to himself.

They were very short, ill-written in a poor little uncultivated hand.

But they all contained one message, that of her love for Aristide.

Whatever illusions she may have had concerning Batterby had soon vanished. She knew, with the unerring instinct of woman, that he had betrayed and deserted her. Aristide's pious fraud had never deceived her for a second. Too gentle, too timid to let him know what was in her heart, she had written the secret patiently week after week, hoping every time that curiosity, or pity, or something--she knew not what--would induce him to open the idle letter, and wondering in her simple peasant's soul at the delicacy that caused him to refrain. Once she had boldly given him the envelope unclosed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE READ IT, AND BLINKED IN AMAZEMENT]

"She died for want of love, _parbleu_," said Aristide, "and there was mine quivering in my heart and trembling on my lips all the time.... She had _des yeux de pervenche_. Ah! _nom d'un chien!_ It is only with me that Providence plays such tricks."

He walked to the window and looked out into the grey street. Presently I heard him murmuring the words of the old French song:--

Elle est morte en fevrier; Pauvre Colinette!

VII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MIRACLE

You have seen how Aristide, by attaching himself to the Hotel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse as a kind of glorified courier, had founded the Agence Pujol. As he, personally, was the Agence, and the Agence was he, it happened that when he was not in attendance at the hotel, the Agence faded into s.p.a.ce, and when he made his appearance in the vestibule and hung up his placard by the bureau, the Agence at once burst again into the splendour of existence. Apparently the fitful career of the Agence Pujol lasted some years. Whenever a chance of more remunerative employment turned up, Aristide took it and dissolved the Agence.

Whenever outrageous fortune chivied him with slings and arrows penniless to Paris, there was always the Agence waiting to be resuscitated.

It was during one of these periodic flourishings of the Agence Pujol that Aristide met the Ducksmiths.

Business was slack, few guests were at the hotel, and of those few none desired to be personally conducted to the Louvre or Notre Dame or the monument in the Place de la Bastille. They mostly wore the placid expression of folks engaged in business affairs instead of the worried look of pleasure-seekers.

"My good Bocardon," said Aristide, lounging by the bureau and addressing his friend the manager, "this is becoming desperate. In another minute I shall take you out by main force and show you the Pont Neuf."

At that moment the door of the stuffy salon opened, and a travelling Briton, whom Aristide had not seen before, advanced to the bureau and inquired his way to the Madeleine. Aristide turned on him like a flash.

"Sir," said he, extracting doc.u.ments from his pockets with lightning rapidity, "nothing would give me greater pleasure than to conduct you thither. My card. My tariff. My advertis.e.m.e.nt." He pointed to the placard. "I am the managing director of the Agence Pujol, under the special patronage of this hotel. I undertake all travelling arrangements, from the Moulin Rouge to the Pyramids, and, as you see, my charges are moderate."

The Briton, holding the doc.u.ments in a pudgy hand, looked at the swift-gestured director with portentous solemnity. Then, with equal solemnity, he looked at Bocardon.

"Monsieur Ducksmith," said the latter, "you can repose every confidence in Monsieur Aristide Pujol."

"Umph!" said Mr. Ducksmith.

After another solemn inspection of Aristide, he stuck a pair of gold-rimmed gla.s.ses on his fleshy nose and perused the doc.u.ments. He was a fat, heavy man of about fifty years of age, and his scanty hair was turning grey. His puffy cheeks hung jowl-like, giving him the appearance of some odd dog--a similarity greatly intensified by the eye-sockets, the lower lids of which were dragged down in the middle, showing the red like a bloodhound's; but here the similarity ended, for the man's eyes, dull and blue, had the unspeculative fixity of a rabbit's. His mouth, small and weak, dribbled away at the corners into the jowls which, in their turn, melted into two or three chins. He was decently dressed in grey tweeds, and wore a diamond ring on his little finger.

"Umph!" said he, at last; and went back to the salon.

As soon as the door closed behind him Aristide sprang into an att.i.tude of indignation.

"Did you ever see such a bear! If I ever saw a bigger one I would eat him without salt or pepper. _Mais nom d'un chien_, such people ought to be made into sausages!"

"_Flegme britannique!_" laughed Bocardon.

Half an hour pa.s.sed, and Mr. Ducksmith made no reappearance from the salon. In the forlorn hope of a client Aristide went in after him. He found Mr. Ducksmith, gla.s.ses on nose, reading a newspaper, and a plump, black-haired lady, with an expressionless face, knitting a grey woollen sock. Why they should be spending their first morning--and a crisp, sunny morning, too--in Paris in the murky staleness of this awful little salon, Aristide could not imagine. As he entered, Mr. Ducksmith regarded him vacantly over the top of his gold-rimmed gla.s.ses.

"I have looked in," said Aristide, with his ingratiating smile, "to see whether you are ready to go to the Madeleine."

"Madeleine?" the lady inquired, softly, pausing in her knitting.

"Madame," Aristide came forward, and, hand on heart, made her the lowest of bows. "Madame, have I the honour of speaking to Madame Ducksmith?

Enchanted, madame, to make your acquaintance," he continued, after a grunt from Mr. Ducksmith had a.s.sured him of the correctness of his conjecture. "I am Monsieur Aristide Pujol, director of the Agence Pujol, and my poor services are absolutely at your disposal."

He drew himself up, twisted his moustache, and met her eyes--they were rather sad and tired--with the roguish mockery of his own. She turned to her husband.

"Are you thinking of going to the Madeleine, Bartholomew?"

"I am, Henrietta," said he. "I have decided to do it. And I have also decided to put ourselves in the charge of this gentleman. Mrs. Ducksmith and I are accustomed to all the conveniences of travel--I may say that we are great travellers--and I leave it to you to make the necessary arrangements. I prefer to travel at so much per head per day."

He spoke in a wheezy, solemn monotone, from which all elements of life and joy seemed to have been eliminated. His wife's voice, though softer in timbre, was likewise devoid of colour.

"My husband finds that it saves us from responsibilities," she remarked.

"And over-charges, and the necessity of learning foreign languages, which at our time of life would be difficult. During all our travels we have not been to Paris before, owing to the impossibility of finding a personally-conducted tour of an adequate cla.s.s."

"Then, my dear sir," cried Aristide, "it is Providence itself that has put you in the way of the Agence Pujol. I will now conduct you to the Madeleine without the least discomfort or danger."

"Put on your hat, Henrietta," said Mr. Ducksmith, "while this gentleman and I discuss terms."

Mrs. Ducksmith gathered up her knitting and retired, Aristide dashing to the door to open it for her. This gallantry surprised her ever so little, for a faint flush came into her cheek and the shadow of a smile into her eyes.

"I wish you to understand, Mr. Pujol," said Mr. Ducksmith, "that being, I may say, a comparatively rich man, I can afford to pay for certain luxuries; but I made a resolution many years ago, which has stood me in good stead during my business life, that I would never be cheated. You will find me liberal but just."

He was as good as his word. Aristide, who had never in his life exploited another's wealth to his own advantage, suggested certain terms, on the basis of so much per head per day, which Mr. Ducksmith declared, with a sigh of relief, to be perfectly satisfactory.

"Perhaps," said he, after further conversation, "you will be good enough to schedule out a month's railway tour through France, and give me an inclusive estimate for the three of us. As I say, Mrs. Ducksmith and I are great travellers--we have been to Norway, to Egypt, to Morocco and the Canaries, to the Holy Land, to Rome, and lovely Lucerne--but we find that attention to the trivial detail of travel militates against our enjoyment."

"My dear sir," said Aristide, "trust in me, and your path and that of the charming Mrs. Ducksmith will be strewn with roses."

Whereupon Mrs. Ducksmith appeared, arrayed for walking out, and Aristide, having ordered a cab, drove with them to the Madeleine. They alighted in front of the majestic flight of steps. Mr. Ducksmith stared at the cla.s.sical portico supported on its Corinthian columns with his rabbit-like, unspeculative gaze--he had those filmy blue eyes that never seem to wink--and after a moment or two turned away.

"Umph!" said he.

Mrs. Ducksmith, dutiful and silent, turned away also.