"And they lived happily ever after!" If the advent of Madame de Lyrolle had only been the cue for that sweet, old-fashioned culmination—that dulcet, though generally inartistic surcease from trouble! But, of course, it was not. My readers will probably say that sheer dramatic justice cries out for our speedy chastisement. Alas! Sheer dramatic justice did not have to cry long. It pursued us relentlessly, raveningly. We were innocent as Pompeii confidingly couched beside the dread Vesuvius. This is not the place to say that we deserved it. Surely, if Letitia and I have made one solitary friend during the progress of this "sad, eventful history," he, or she, will refrain from the luxurious "I told you so!"

I am not comparing Madame de Lyrolle to Vesuvius. No. I have never been vicious, and I should scorn to do so rank an injustice to—Vesuvius! There are methods of confounding, more subtile than that of a swift and merciful eruption, methods that—er—"get there just the same." Alas! Also, misericordia!

Thanks to Letitia's iridescent mendacity, our household effects were no longer bones of contention. Madame gracefully condescended to live with us and be our cook, and Leonie, equally gracefully, deigned to support the culinary star. They both persisted in regarding Letitia as a darling of fortune, marred. And I was the marrer. Leonie, who waited upon us, paid me but scant attention and looked upon me as of no consequence. If I addressed her, she replied as to one of her own kind; in fact, it occurred to me that I was considered as a wickedly lucky mortal, who, by some freak of fate, had been plucked from a butler's life to desecrate that of the husband of an American heiress.

Madame asked for half her salary in advance. "We do not know you," Letitia had said to her. The inference was that she, on the other hand, did not know Letitia. She was not taking any risks. Although our gold dishes were at Tarrytown, Madame cautiously decided to assure herself that some of the metal of which the dishes were made remained in New York.

"Leonie is to do the marketing for Madame," said Letitia, on the morning of the first day; "and I think that arrangement very satisfactory. I have supplied her with money—more than she could possibly need, for I did not want to seem 'close'—and at the end of the week we can go over the accounts. It all seems delightful, doesn't it, dear?"

It did, indeed, and our first dinner confirmed our sensation of pleasure. There was no deception. We began with a purÉe mongole, and proceeded with frogs À la poulette. Dainty little lamb chops, À la maintenon, roast grass plovers, a salad that was nearly poetic, and a delicious sweet, known as cream renversÉe, made us feel almost too nice to be at home. As for the after-dinner coffee, it was—sepia ecstasy. Perhaps we were fastidious; undoubtedly the dear folks who say that they revel in plain food delicately prepared in pure water, will sniff at this program. Still, I should not like to set it before them with any hopes of finding remnants. Those dear folks who love plain food! The grapes are so sour!

Leonie almost threw the food at me, but she served Letitia most obsequiously. I was glad to see my little wife so well taken care of, but I must admit that I made frantic efforts to redeem myself in the handmaiden's sight. I tried to indicate, unostentatiously, education and refinement. Weak I may be, but I hated to be regarded as a vulgarian.

The maid was a great restraint upon us. There she stood at the back of Letitia's chair like a Nemesis. We had to restrict our conversation to glittering generalities. She drank in our words, unbudgingly. Her eyes were riveted on Letitia's plate, and my wife was plied with food unceasingly. I am sorry to say that I had to ask for some more of the cream renversÉe. In fact, I had to ask twice, before I got it, and then it was pushed rather rudely before me.

"It is like a dream," said Letitia purringly, when we were alone in the drawing-room. "You see, nothing was over-stated in the advertisement. It was all quite true."

"I only wish we had a theater on, or a party to go to, or something to do," I said longingly. "It seems wicked to sit still and read, after a dinner like that. We ought to move—stir—walk."

"Of course it would be nicer," acquiesced Letitia. "That will come later. I dare say that Madame will spur us to sociability."

We sat, and read, and digested. Letitia seemed drowsy; I felt heavy, and disinclined for exertion. The richness of our repast was undeniable. Letitia's remark that it was like a dream was not irrelevant, but the dream was a nightmare. A more awe-inspiring night I have never spent. I dreamed that Gerda Lyberg was holding me down and throttling me, while Mrs. Potzenheimer and Birdie Miriam McCaffrey did a cachucha apiece on my body. I awoke, dripping with perspiration, to find Letitia agitatedly pacing up and down the bedroom.

"Nothing—nothing would induce me to go to sleep again, Archie," she said excitedly. "Don't ask me to. I shall sit up for the rest of the night. I dreamed that I went in the kitchen and found Madame de Lyrolle boiling Olga Allallami's twins!"

Breakfast was so elaborate that it made me late for the office. There were eggs, À la bonne femme, and porgies, À la Horly. Madame had also prepared pigs' feet with sauce Robert, which we were obliged to refuse. In fact, most of the breakfast was left. There was enough for at least ten people, each with a healthy appetite. But, as Letitia said, nothing would be wasted. These French cooks understood the science of economy. It was one of their finest points.

The second dinner was an artistic continuation of the first. It consisted of broiled trout, sweetbreads, and ptarmigan. Madame had made pathetic inquiries about the wine-cellar, and Letitia, in humiliation, had been forced to tell her that the wine-cellar was under the bed in the spare-room. There we kept a few bottles of claret and a case of champagne. We were not collectors. We knew very little about wines, and did not belong to the class that discusses a vintage as though it were a religion. Madame's artistic nature needed a stimulant, and Letitia told her to take what she required. Owing to the location of the wine-cellar, it called for no key.

Our appetite was not as keen on this second occasion, though we did fair justice to the bill of fare. It was most ridiculously generous.

"It is a pity that we don't know anybody," said Letitia discontentedly; "it seems so greedy for us to sit down alone to such a dinner. We should appreciate it so much more if we had company. Don't you agree with me, dear? Positively, I feel gluttonous. I should enjoy people sharing this with us. We might ask Aunt Julia, or Mrs. Archer, or—"

"Tamworth?"

"Tamworth!" cried Letitia angrily. "No, Archie, that man shall never enter this house again. If he came to dinner, Madame would surely have triplets—or something horrible. Tamworth is unlucky. I look upon him as responsible for Olga Allallami's—"

"Letitia!"

"You know what I mean. I associate him with our first knowledge of that disaster, and—I shall hate him for ever. So don't suggest Tamworth. No," she said querulously to Leonie, who was hovering over her with cabinet pudding, À la Sadi-Carnot. "I can't really eat any sweets to-night. I am sorry, because the pudding looks so nice. Perhaps it will do for to-morrow."

"Madame is joking," Leonie murmured deferentially. "The pudding would be impossible to-morrow."

Rather than sit still and read again, we went to a music-hall and walked there! It was not the music-hall that we wanted, but the exertion of getting to it. Anything rather than another series of nightmares.

"Madame is certainly a wonder," said Letitia, as we listened to a blatant comedian holding up the stage. "It is marvelous how these French women can make a little money go a long way. Just think of the perpetual surprises she offers us, and of her knowledge of the market. While her wages are quite ridiculously high—I wouldn't dare to discuss the matter with Aunt Julia—you will find that in the long run we shall not be out of pocket, owing to the French system of economy."

"The table is certainly most liberal," I remarked, "though nothing ever seems to return. I noticed, dear, that at each meal we have something new."

"That is her art," said Letitia delightedly. "Constant surprise—that is the maxim of the French cook. I forgot to say, dear, that I gave her twenty-five dollars for kitchen utensils. She wanted sautoires and casseroles, and dozens of things we have never had. Of course, this expense can never occur again. She laughed at our old tins, and declared that they would ruin anything."

The week passed uneventfully—unless we may consider our meals as events. We lived on the "fat of the land" in bounteous doses, and accepted it as our merited portion. Madame seemed to awaken from her artistic lethargy, and once or twice her temperament surprised us. She and Leonie waxed so lively in the kitchen that we were startled. Then again, they seemed to quarrel rather vociferously. Letitia asserted that she heard Madame exclaim on one occasion: "Mon Dieu!" but I could have sworn that it was "Hully Jee!" It seemed absurd to mistake one for the other. Probably I was wrong, though as Letitia was expecting French she would be likely to imagine that she heard it. Why, however, should Madame de Lyrolle of the Faubourg St. Germain, cry "Hully Jee"? Then we realized that corks popped noisily and uncannily, and the inference seemed unmistakable that either Leonie, or Madame, or both, had been groping under the bed-wine-cellar. However, we did not mind that. The artistic temperament yearns for an occasional vinous coaxing.

Letitia talked persistently of the joy of surprise. That surprise is, nevertheless, not inevitably joyous, was a fact rather rudely borne in upon us. The day of reckoning came, and the "fat of the land" stared us starkly in the face. The evening that I usually dedicate to the signing of the tradesmen's checks arrived. We had dined particularly well, the main feature of the dinner having been squabs. We ate two apiece, and four were removed intact—mute testimony to the French system of economy.

"I can't think how she does it!" Letitia had said, in ecstatic appreciation. "We might really be millionaires."

We might be, but we were not. Yet, I had no premonition of evil as I nonchalantly took up the butcher's bill. When I saw it, I uttered an exclamation, and Letitia came running to my side. We looked at it, and rubbed our eyes. We looked again, and rubbed them some more.

"It must be a mistake," Letitia said, paling.

The figures were fat and solid. The amount set forth would have maintained an ordinary family of seven or eight, in comfort, for a month. A horrid sensation of bankruptcy overwhelmed me. Then I looked at the grocer's bill. It was four pages long, and the "demnition total" quite appalling. I could scarcely believe the testimony of my own eyes. The gentleman who supplied the fish appeared to be equally rapacious. Was it all a hateful conspiracy, a fell plot to effect my ruin, or—or was it French economy?

"We have eaten ourselves to the poorhouse, Letitia," I said, with a sinking heart. "I—I can't pay these bills."

"Oh, they must be somebody else's bills," murmured Letitia, "they—they can't be ours."

"They can't be anybody else's," I protested, in the calmness born of despair. "Nobody could stand them. Rockefeller doesn't live in this neighborhood. Carnegie is miles away. They might be Carnegie's, if he were a neighbor. As it is, my girl, I'm afraid they are ours. Yet how can they be?"

"Of course we have lived well," said Letitia reflectively, "we have lived very well. We can't even put it down to waste, because French people never waste."

"And yet"—I tried to fathom the mystery—"there has always been three times as much as we could eat. The other night, we had six ptarmigans before us, and we ate one apiece. The inference is, Letitia, either that Madame and Leonie have appetites like cart-horses, or that they throw the things away."

"A French cook throws nothing away," persisted Letitia almost defiantly. "That I know."

"You had better ask Madame about it," I said doggedly. "Perhaps she can explain."

"That is surely your privilege, Archie. You pay the bills; I don't."

"Since you have told her that I am just a poor hanger-on, and that you are the money end of the concern, the affair this time, my dear Letitia, is yours."

At present, I flattered myself I had scored one. Letitia had painted her position so luminously, and had etched me in in such somber tints, that I felt master of the situation. Perhaps it was cowardly, but as I had the name I might as well have the game. Although I had said little about the contemptuous treatment I had received from Leonie during the past week, I had felt it acutely. Like the Spartan boy, I had suffered in silence. Being American, and not even a little bit Spartan, this had been difficult.

Letitia was weeping silently, and I felt like a double-distilled brute. "I hate to talk to an artist in that way," she said sorrowfully. "Her temperament will be shocked. You can well imagine, Archie, that such a woman will simply despise us."

"But where's the French system of economy?" I asked wildly. "Where's the pot au feu with the delicious soup, and the daintily served meat? You said that rats would starve on the refuse from a French kitchen. Why, according to these bills, the refuse from ours would have fattened the entire menagerie at Central Park and the Bronx, including the elephants, tigers and bears."

"Now you're exaggerating," asserted Letitia plaintively; "you're making things out worse than they are. You're—"

I could not afford to argue. Facts stared me in the face. I had a small balance at the bank, which I should over-draw if I made out checks for these bills. The savings I had accumulated were drawing interest in the growing but by no means adult publishing house of Tamworth and Fairfax. I could borrow from Tamworth, of course, this week, but next week loomed up hideously as a sheer impossibility. Something must be done at once.

I rang the bell. "We must talk it over with Madame," I said desperately.

The kitchen, some distance away from the drawing-room, seemed strangely close. We could hear Madame and Leonie laughing weirdly, and though we both of us liked merry moods, this particular brand of mirth grated. There was a pause after my ring. Then Leonie appeared, wiping her mouth, and I told her that I wished to see her aunt.

"I—I think—she's gone to bed," the maid remarked, after a reluctant moment.

"Why, I just heard her laughing," said Letitia, surprised. "Send her in at once, Leonie." And as the maid departed, Letitia added: "She may be unprepared for the drawing-room."

This was undoubtedly true. Madame came in a moment later, also wiping her mouth, and with her face wreathed in smiles. Her hair was disheveled and her dress disordered. She might have been rolling on the floor. Her look was so strange, her gait so unsteady, that Letitia instinctively clutched my arm. Thereupon, Madame de Lyrolle fell promptly over the tiger-head, and—unlike many who had suffered a similar fate—she lay there, laughing hilariously.

"And me a lady, too!" she exclaimed, pealing with mirth.

Outside the room stood Leonie, apparently deeply agitated. As she saw her star prone on the best rug, and heard the bacchanalian laughter stertorously proceeding from her lips, she entered hastily and approached her relative. Letitia still held my arm in a grip, and my own emotions were—well, mixed.

"Oh, come away, Aunt Delia," pleaded Leonie; "come away. She's not feeling good to-night"—turning to Letitia—"she's had toothache, and swallowed some of the whisky that she took to ease the pain. It must have gone to her head. Oh, Aunt Delia, get up. That ain't no position for a lady."

Leonie burst into tears. The position was too much for her, especially as Aunt Delia gave unmistakable indications of a fondness for red garters with saucy bows on them!

"Why do you call her Aunt Delia?" asked Letitia sternly, evidently in the belief that the Faubourg St. Germain had no dealings with Delias.

"Because it's her name," replied Leonie sullenly. "That's what I call her. She was Delia O'Shaughnessy before she married that blooming old French chef on the French ocean steamer—blessed if I don't forget its name. She's always Aunt Delia O'Shaughnessy to me."

Letitia covered her face with her hands. Madame O'Shaughnessy de Lyrolle began to kick until the bows on her garters fluttered. Still she laughed, loudly, shockingly, unendingly.

"Was she ever in France?" I asked, mortally pained.

"Not on your tintype!" declared the maid in disgraceful colloquialism, as she advanced to the tiger-head and tried to raise Aunt Delia's two hundred pounds. "New York's good enough for Aunt Delia; ain't it, Auntie? She in France! And with that husband! Nobody would want to go to a country that turned out specimens like that. But he taught Aunt Delia how to cook—coached her for years—and don't you forget it. She got that much out of him."

"Now I understand her extravagance," cried Letitia, as though suddenly enlightened. "Now I see it all. He was a cook on some ocean greyhound, and she—"

"Extravagant!" cried Leonie insolently; "I like that. Aunt Delia has cooked for the best people in this country. She has never yet hired herself out to cheap skates. Say, Aunt Delia"—frantically endeavoring to pierce that lady's dulled comprehension—"they're complaining. We're extravagant. They want good things, but they hate to pay for 'em. They eat like pigs, and then kick at the bills."

"Come away, Letitia," I said nervously. "You go to your room, and I'll see to this."

"I will not leave you, Archie," she declared, though she was trembling; "I—I'm not afraid."

"Won't either of you help me up with me aunt?" Leonie asked, her anger rising and an unsteadiness of gait, similar to that of the good lady on the tiger-head, manifesting itself. "Call yourselves human beings? Standing there and letting a lady suffer like this! You and your gold plates!" (tugging at Aunt Delia). "You and your rich Tarrytown aunt!" (pulling down Aunt Delia's refractory dress). "I don't believe it. I don't believe your stories. We've got our money, anyway, and you can fish—fish—fish!"

With each "fish" Aunt Delia raised her limbs, and her dutiful niece pressed them discreetly down. Madame O'Lyrolle de Shaughnessy still continued her ebullition of laughter. She was deaf to her niece's entreaties. She had certainly come to stay, and the tiger-head appeared to suit her artistic tastes.

"You will have to call in a policeman, Archie," said Letitia, in a low voice.

Whether it was the innate sympathy of anything O'Shaughnessy for New York's finest, or whether Letitia's words acted as a stimulant to the lady's artistic temperament, we shall never know, but at the mere utterance of the word "policeman" Aunt Delia decided to quit her recumbent position, and with a look of offended dignity, and Leonie's assistance, she rose to her feet.

"I'd like to see the po-lees-man who'd touch me," she said in deep contralto tones, with a lost chord in them. "Me for me bedstead, Leonie, old gal. Come, give us a hand." Then, with a solemnity that some people might consider humorous, she added, turning to Letitia: "Leonie's a good girl, and a comfort—hic—to her old aunt. Sorry to trouble you. Don't mention it. It's a pleasure. As my husband used to say—hang him!—'Pas de quoi. A votre service.' Well, we'll go now, and thank you. So long, for a little while!"

Leonie, with an expression of spite on her face that was almost withering, led away the Faubourg St. Germain's caterer. The fumes of wine filled the room and I threw open the windows, heaving a sigh of enjoyment as the fresh air reached us. Letitia's bravery appealed to me, and I complimented her upon her plucky behavior. The reaction had now set in and she was shivering apprehensively.

"I don't think I can stand any more of this, Archie," she said weakly. "I—I've reached the limit. This scene was too degrading—too abject—too incredibly vulgar!"

"They must leave the house in the morning!"

"In the morning!" she cried, aghast. "Why not now? I shouldn't feel safe sleeping with them in the house. They might murder us, or each other."

"They won't murder us, dear," I said soothingly, "and if they choose to murder each other—"

"The scandal would be too horrible. Archie, let us implore them to go now. Let us offer them money to leave at once."

"Money!" I said bitterly. "I'm not made of it, my girl. I certainly can't pay them to get out after having given them so much to come in. They won't hurt us, you silly child. They are just a trifle intoxicated."

"A trifle intoxicated! How can you say such a thing? Oh, those red garters—those terrible red garters—those bows—will be for ever in my mind. I can never—never—look a red garter in the face again. A trifle intoxicated! Why, it is in conditions like this that the worst crimes are committed. Let us take the midnight train to Tarrytown."

"And leave them here to complete our ruin! No, Letitia. You have been a brave girl throughout this episode. Just be brave for a bit longer. To-morrow we shall see things differently. These women will sleep quietly, and so shall we."

"I shan't. I couldn't to save my life. I should see red garters and those awful odious legs. I should hear that laughter. I can't forget it. O'Shaughnessy! Just think of it—the very name that I loathe, too. Aunt Delia! Isn't it wicked, Archie? Isn't it cruel? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Oh, I can't stand it. Ha! ha! ha! ha!"

Letitia was in hysterics before I realized it. In alarm, I ran to the dining-room and mixed her a glass of bromo-seltzer, and then ran back and stood over her until she had drunk it. As she grew calmer and an ominous repose took the place of the hysteria, I implored her to try and forget everything until the morning, when these events would seem less awe-inspiring. The riot in the kitchen had ceased. A sound of deep contralto snoring, accompanied by similar music in a tone more treble, was all that we heard. Aunt Delia was evidently sleeping the sleep of the Faubourg St. Germain, while Leonie was still supporting her star.

Nevertheless, I locked our door, and Letitia pushed the bureau against it.