In one of the dullest towns of France, I sat with a Parisian at a variety show.

A Frenchman, with a very grubby shirt-front, presented to the audience "SeÑorita Pilar Naranjo, the famous dancer of Madrid." My companion started dramatically, and whispered, "I pray you to pardon me—I shall adjourn to the bar till she has done."

Of course, I followed him. "What's the matter?"

"Do not ask me to watch her!"

"Why?"

"I could not support it."

"She is so bad as all that?"

"Bad? She is entrancing."

"Oh! Did you see her when you were in Spain?"

"In Paris, when I had come back. Have you read my Sobs After Midnight?"

"No."

"Buy it. It contains perhaps the most poignant poems that I have written—they are moans in metres for my loss of Pilar Naranjo."

"You don't say so?"

"She was the passion of my life." He struck an attitude. "Return to your seat alone, mon ami. For company I shall have my bitter thoughts."

Civility forbade me to let him do all the acting, himself, and I said in solemn tones, "I shall remain by your side."

He brooded heavily, with one eye on the past, and the other on the effect he was making. "In my nature," he informed me, "there is, mysteriously, some Castilian quality—no sooner had I arrived in Spain than I bore myself like a Spaniard. I spent fascinating months there, and when I came home, Paris appeared to me a foreign city. Absently I replied to people in Spanish; my fondest possession was a guitar that I had brought back. Though I could not play it, I derived exquisite pleasure from slinging it over my shoulder when I promenaded in the Garden of the Luxembourg. It may be that instinct warned my compatriots that now they were alien to me, for they seemed to avoid me, and I was alone."

"I can understand it," I said.

"One melancholy evening, as I wandered through the barren streets, pining for the magic of Granada, I noticed the name of 'Pilar Naranjo' on the bills of a minor musique 'all. Though it was a name unknown to me, its nationality was an appeal. I entered the musique 'all. I paid for a fauteuil, and received a pink ticket. What a crisis! Even to-day I cannot behold pink tickets without a shudder."

To the strains of an exiguous orchestra, the provocation of the lady's castanets reached our ears gaily. Her victim writhed.

---

"Very soon I gathered that she was popular there; but on the stage, to be a foreigner is to be a favourite, and I prepared myself to be disappointed when she appeared. Sapristi! I was spellbound. She danced, that night, the habenera that she is dancing now. Ah, those cajoling arms, so irresistible! How imperial was her form, how Southern were her feet! And her face! the bewildering beauty of her face that haunts me still."

I got up.

"Sit down—I could not endure your looking at her without me!" he gasped. "When her turn finished, I had no thought but her; I was scarcely conscious of the monkeys that came next. In some fifteen minutes a girl had danced herself into my destiny—and I was swept to the stage door, like a leaf, on the gale of my emotions.

"I could see nobody inside, to take a message. Ten minutes—a quarter of an hour passed. I waited in the gloomy little cul-de-sac, dreading, in every second, to hear the approaching footstep of a rival with an appointment. So tremendous was my agitation that Spanish tenses with which I was normally familiar evaded me, and my brain buzzed with the effort to compose a preliminary phrase.

"The door opened. Before her features were visible in the darkness, the majesty of her deportment proclaimed that it was she. I advanced. I bowed, with all my grace.

"'SeÑorita,' I said, 'I am a poet, and I adore you. Will you honour me by supping with me?'

"It was not the overwhelming eloquence that I should have had in French, but I felt that the fervour of my voice should make amends; and I prayed that she would not be flippant in return. My sentiment demanded sweet, grave, contralto tones; a giggle would have been torture to me. Once more, a crisis—a spiritual crisis, in which my heart ceased to beat. Would she respond gravely, or would she giggle?

"She did neither one nor the other. As if I had not spoken, she went by.

"Comment done? I had referred clearly to supper; I was well-dressed, young, handsome—and a dancer at a fifth-rate musique 'all, which was not precisely a college for decorum, refused to dispense with the ceremony of an introduction!

"It was prodigious. And by degrees my anger at the affront subsided. So far from dismissing her from my mind, I paid homage to her virtue. Yes, my bosom was thrilled by deep esteem. On that sad walk home, the romantic passion for a danseuse was transmuted into a devout reverence for a noble woman. I condemned myself for approaching her so informally. There is, in my complex nature, a vein of humility, extremely winning. I resolved to write to her, confessing my fault, before I slept.

"It was a long job, because I had to look up so many words in a dictionary, but I foresaw that she would be touched by the letter. In conclusion I said, 'The impulse that you scorned was born, not of disrespect, but of an admiration, that brooked no curb. If your vestal pride is not adamant to my remorse, grant me, I supplicate, an opportunity to express my penitence at the stage door to-morrow (Wednesday).'

"Wednesday's sunshine already tinged the street when I dropped the missive in the boite-aux-lettres, but I was not conscious of fatigue. On the contrary, I regretted that I must kill eighteen hours in sleep, or some other banality, before the paradise of her presence was attained. How much had happened in a night! All that was frivolous in my disposition had passed away, and I realised that this girl had inspired in me a devotion profound, epoch-making, and supreme."

---

He paused. From the footlights, the Frenchman of the dirty shirt-front was to be heard in the capacity of interpreter: "Ladies and gentlemen, SeÑorita Pilar Naranjo desires me to translate to you her heartfelt gratitude for the enthusiasm of your applause. If you will graciously allow her a few moments for a change of costume, SeÑorita Naranjo will have the honour of presenting to you her sensational Toreador Dance."

---

The poet groaned. "When I woke I hoped to find that I had slept well into the afternoon. With impatience I saw that it was only mid-day. However, in dressing, I recognised that I might profitably employ some of the time with the dictionary, and I prepared a score of burning declarations for the interview.

"The remaining hours were intolerable. No sooner had the musique 'all opened than I took my seat, but the exasperating entertainment appeared to me to endure for Æons before her turn. The torments, inflicted on my suspense by a pair of cross-talk comedians, cannot be surpassed in hell.

"At last I trembled in the cul-de-sac again. At last she came!

"With an obeisance that consigned my career to her feet, I murmured, 'I am here to learn whether I am pardoned.'

"Not a syllable! As before, she passed me by.

"Ah, mon Dieu! I cannot tell you how I reached my couch.

"But my zeal survived even this. I was stricken, but indomitable. I said, 'Behold a saint worth winning!' I said 'Brace up, and demonstrate that you are worthy of her!'

"My friend, every day for a month I thumbed that exhausting dictionary, and a Spanish Grammar, that I might send to her a sonnet every night. For thirty days on end I wrestled with synonyms and inversions in a foreign tongue, to create for her a nightly proof of my genius and my love.

"And I waited for an answer vainly.

"Long after despair had mastered me, I was with a good-for-nothing painter of my acquaintance. He said, 'I have a new flame—delicious. Have you heard of the Spanish dancer up at the Little Casino?'

"By a superhuman effort I controlled myself. 'Your suit prospers?'

"'It is going strong. And only a week since I first dropped in there and saw her!'

"'You are a man of action! But since when have you talked Spanish?'

"'Oh, that isn't necessary,' he laughed; 'she is Spanish only on the stage. Between ourselves, her name is really Marie Durand—she has never been out of France in her life.'

"She had not understood a single word that I had said, or written—and by the time I discovered it, she was another's! He holds her still—you hear him now."

The "interpreter" was speaking again: "SeÑorita Naranjo desires me to translate——"

---

XI

THE GIRL WHO WAS TIRED OF LOVE

At the OpÉra Ball, a boy had danced half the night with a partner whose youthful tones were so delicious, whose tenderness was so attractive, that he implored her a hundred times to unmask. "If I do, you'll get up and go away," she gasped at last, fondling his hand. He vowed that it was her temperament that fascinated him, and she took the mask off—and he saw the sunken face of an old, old woman.

Horrified, he left her.

In the same season, another man supplicated to a girl for her love—a girl with a face so beautiful that it made him forget the strangeness of her voice, which was flat and feeble. And the girl, who looked no more than nineteen, replied with exhaustion: "I outlived such emotions long ago. To tell you the truth, the subject sounds to me ridiculous. All I want to-day is peace and quiet."

Wearily she left him.

These two incidents, peculiar as they are, were the outcome of an occurrence queerer still—an occurrence at the tragic epoch of a woman's life when her glass says: "Stop fooling yourself. You've crumpled to that!"

Madame de Val Fleury had begun to combat the advance of age the day after she detected the first shadowy threat of crowsfeet, as she turned her perfect neck before the mirror. Her triumph was a fleeting one, and the later conquests were briefer yet. Scarcely had the enemy been driven from the glorious eyes when it crept about the chiselled nose and mouth; no sooner was its attack upon her face withheld than it showed greyly in her hair. But she never abandoned the contest, she fought with Time continuously. And although there were moods of depression, as measures more and more drastic were required, custom and vanity enabled her, year by year, decade by decade, to view her reflection with complacence. She beheld it through a haze of illusion, in applying the colour to her shrivelled cheeks. She did not note that the chestnut transformation that had looked so natural on a counter looked spurious on her head; did not see how piteously the perfect neck had sagged.

But one May morning the mirror said: "Stop tooling yourself. You've crumpled to that!" and madame de Val Fleury sat and saw her face withered as it was—and madame de Val Fleury wailed for her lost loveliness as she had never wailed for her dead husband and son.

A dress that she was to wear for the first time, and that had cost five thousand francs, lay on the bed. She did not glance towards it. She leant her elbows on the toilet table and stared at the brutal glass. And beyond the glass she viewed the ghost of her empire, scenes where famous beauties had turned involuntarily at her entrance. It was the women's homage, the reluctant admiration of her own sex that she mourned for, as she brooded there. In her backward gaze she saw why, as the years sped, she had squandered more and more on her modistes—saw bitterly that she had struggled to prolong, by her clothes, the fast-waning jealousy of her face.

And at Longchamp that day she knew herself to be only an old, unattractive woman, magnificently attired.

Not more than a month after this, madame de Val Fleury had the annoyance to lose a pendant sapphire that she was wearing. A reward, not illiberal, was offered, and when she woke from her nap one afternoon she was relieved to learn that the stone had been picked up by a poor girl, who was waiting in the hall to see her.

"If she is clean, I will see her here," said madame de Val Fleury.

The young girl who entered, in a threadbare frock, had been dowered with beauty so extraordinary that all the lady's pleasure at recovering her jewel was swamped in envy. The eyes, the complexion, the exquisite modelling of the features held her mute for an instant.

Subduing a sigh, she said: "I hear you have found my sapphire?"

"Yes, madame."

"Let me look. Where did you find it?

"It was in the road, madame, just against the kerb, in the rue de Berri."

"Ah, yes. I am glad you saw it. It was a piece of luck for you, too, hein?" She rose and opened her desk.

"Yes, indeed, madame," said the girl, clasping her hands.

"What are you—I mean, what do you do for a living?"

"I work at madame Wilhelmine's, madame."

"The milliner's? Why don't you go as mannequin somewhere?—you are—er—pretty."

"They tell me my figure is not good enough, madame."

"That's true. Your figure is bad," said the lady, more amiably. "Well, you could sit to artists for the face. You could earn more money that way than Wilhelmine pays you, I should think."

"I know only one honest way to make as much money as I want, madame," said the girl, in a low voice. "I want a good deal."

"Tiens! The State lotteries, of course."

"No, madame; a likelier way than that."

"Oh! And what do you call a good deal?"

"Madame understands that I am very poor. A trifle to madame would be a good deal to me. Say, a hundred thousand francs."

"A hundred thousand francs! Such a sum is not a trifle to anybody. You know a way to make it?"

"Thanks to this reward, I have a chance to make it," assented the girl, folding the bank notes that had been given to her.

"And not the lotteries?"

"No, madame; a journey for which I lacked the fare. But I bore madame?"

"No, no; go on."

"Eh bien, I am sick of poverty; I would far rather part with my face and gain wealth than remain beautiful and a beggar."

"You would far rather——What do you say?"

"I am going to the Face Exchange, madame," said the girl resolutely.

The old woman looked at her stupefied. "The what?" she asked in a whisper.

"Madame has not heard of it? It is held once a year. Of course one may fail; one may not be able to strike a bargain—and even if one does, the miracle may not occur. But something tells me I shall be fortunate."

Madame de Val Fleury shrank back on the couch, frightened—she could not doubt that the girl was insane. After a moment, nerving herself to approach the bell, she stammered, "Yes, yes, I remember now. I daresay it is the best thing you can do. Good afternoon to you. I wish you every success." And as she sniffed at the smelling salts brought by her maid, she murmured, trembling, "Mad. How terrible! Quite, quite mad."

The incident did not fade from her mind. She thought of it in the night, and on the morrow, and when she took the sapphire and the snapped chain to her jeweller's. If the nonsense the poor creature talked had only been true! What ecstasy! And her tone had been perfectly sane. ... Oh, of course she was demented. Still—still, miracles did happen. Look at Lourdes! Every day madame de Val Fleury recalled the matter with a curiosity more intense, and regretted the alarm that had prevented her obtaining details.

Before a week had gone by, the curiosity drove her to make a purchase at the milliner's the girl had mentioned.

"You have a young person employed here who found a jewel that I lost," she remarked. "I don't see her in the shop."

"Yes, madame. No, madame—she is in the workroom. How fortunate that madame's sapphire was restored to her!"

"Ah, the workroom. Have you had her long? Is she satisfactory?"

"Ah yes, madame. About two years. I have no fault to find with her."

"I fancied she was a little odd in her manner. You have not noticed anything of the kind?"

"Mais non, madame. No doubt she was shy in madame's presence. No, she is quick to take a hint, that girl; she has all her wits about her."

"You might tell her I should like to have a word with her," faltered madame de Val Fleury. And when the girl appeared, still more beautiful without a hat, she said, "Come to my flat again this evening about nine o'clock if you can. I will make it worth your while. I want to talk to you."

As she passed out she felt breathless and dizzy.

"Then, if she is not mad—" panted madame de Val Fleury, "then, if she is not mad——My God, can there be something in it?"

She had been going to a neighbour's for a game of ÉcartÉ after dinner, and ÉcartÉ was a passion with her, but she knew no regrets in cancelling the engagement. A book by her favourite novelist, just published, lay to hand, and reading was another of her pet pleasures, but she did not open it, as she sat waiting for the hour to strike. Punctually at nine o'clock the bell rang. The girl was shown in.

"Good evening," said madame de Val Fleury. "Sit down. No, no, not so far off. Come closer. Tell me. I have been wondering.... What you were speaking about the other afternoon. Is it really a fact?"

"Madame means my intention?"

"I mean the place itself. It actually exists?"

"Ah, certainly it exists, madame!"

"Where is it?"

"In Brittany, madame. Near Pont Chouay."

"But—it sounds incredible! I am sure you are sincere, but—how long have you known of it?"

"I have known of it ever since the first miracle that happened there, madame, four years ago. I lived in the village then. The face of a little girl, the miller's child, was burnt—ah, it was frightful to see!—and her mother knelt and prayed, the whole night through, that she herself might bear the scars instead. And at dawn it was so, and the child's face was as fair as ever."

"It takes one's breath away! What is the village called?"

"St. Pierre des Champs, madame. If madame goes there and inquires, everyone will confirm what I tell her."

"And such miracles have happened again?"

"At dawn on each seventh of September, madame. I assure madame I speak the truth."

"Listen," said madame de Val Fleury. "I shall go and hear what they say. If I am satisfied, are you willing to—to exchange your face for mine? I will not haggle with you, I will pay what you want. It is a large amount, but you shall have it—a hundred thousand francs."

"One would have to think over the price, madame," said the girl hesitatingly.

"What? It is the figure you named."

"Yes—for an exchange. But it is possible I might change with someone of my own years. Naturally I should prefer that."

"You do not suppose a young girl would pay a hundred thousand francs?" cried madame de Val Fleury, wincing. "If she has youth already, what for?"

"For beauty. There are many young girls who would be content to do so."

"There will not be many living in a little village."

"Ah, madame, people who know arrive from all parts. Besides, it might be better for me to take even fifty thousand francs with a young face than a hundred thousand with—with one more mature. Madame understands that I am human—I am not indifferent to the other sex. If I sacrifice all my prospects of admiration, sweethearts, husband, it is worth a great sum."

"I shall go and hear what they say," repeated madame de Val Fleury, deeply mortified. "What is your name?"

"Berthe Cheron, madame."

"Put it down for me, and your private address. If what I hear convinces me perhaps we may come to terms."

All night the old woman dreamt she was again of surpassing loveliness, the envy of all the women of her world.

She went to Brittany the same week, and returned palpitating with the tales that had been told her. She agreed with mademoiselle Cheron to pay 120,000 francs if the metamorphosis occurred, and it was arranged that, when the time came, they should travel to St. Pierre des Champs together.

In the meanwhile her rapturous reflections were not free from anxiety. If the dawning of the longed-for date should indeed yield her Berthe Cheron's face, she would be no longer recognised as madame de Val Fleury. Her social circle would not know her; monsieur Septfous, her banker—she banked at a private bank, and monsieur Septfous was practically her man of business—would not know her; her servants themselves would not know her when she came back to Paris. To explain would be to meet with perpetual embarrassments. On the whole, the best plan would be to change her name as well. It would mean relinquishing a few friendships that she valued, but——Again, she foresaw herself dazzlingly fair, and caught her breath. Her loveliness would compensate a million-fold.

Her income was derived chiefly from Municipal Bonds and MÉtro shares. At the bank she had also a substantial sum on deposit. She told monsieur Septfous that she had decided to spend the rest of her life in the country, and she took a draft, payable to bearer, for the full amount of cash, and removed her box of securities.

She determined to call herself madame de Beaulieu.

Late on the evening of the 6th of September the old woman and the girl arrived at St. Pierre des Champs.

They had expected to arrive earlier, but the train crept into Pont Chouay at 7.30 instead of 5.15, and thence they were dependent on the local fiacres, which were hard to find and slow to move. Madame de Val Fleury reached the village, impatient and fatigued.

In the little moonlit market-place, with its vacant stalls, when they entered it at last, many figures circulated, scrutinising one another's features eagerly. Most of the men and women bore lanterns, and one of the stalls had evidently been sub-let for the evening; under the sign "Christophe: Cheese, Eggs, and Butter," a humpback had electric torches for sale. As the pair made their way, across the cobbles, to the shrine that had been erected beside the water-mill, no face of much beauty met their view. The sellers appeared to be chiefly buxom peasant girls, wholesome looking, but no more. Those who had come to buy were of types more various. Here, an old roue, fraudulently dyed and painted, peered avidly at the features of a youth, who raised his lantern and rebuffed him with a jeer. There, an individual with crafty lips and predatory eyes, obviously a sharper, was to be seen bargaining for the physiognomy of a simpleton. A man with a round humorous face darted each moment from one melancholy countenance to another, and a passer-by said, loud enough to be overheard: "Look at Jibily, the low comedian—he is crazy to play tragic parts!" Irritating and incessant was the shrill outcry of a female broker, hobbling with a file of maids-of-all-work at her heels. "Fine faces cheap!" clamoured the crone. "Fine faces cheap!"

It became very cold beside the water-mill. As the laggard night wore by, madame de Val Fleury shivered distressfully. Alternately she prayed and despaired. More than once she glanced, tense with hope, at her companion, striving to detect some promise of the sought-for change, but the girl's face remained unaltered. In the serene radiance of the moon its fairness was exquisite beyond words, and the woman wrung her hands with the intensity of her desire.

Slowly, slowly the moonlight faded. The pallor of dawn streaked the sky; and a hundred faces were upturned beseechingly, a hundred suppliants trembled. Wan and white grew the scene. A tremor and a rustling stirred the huddled figures. Suddenly, somewhere a woman wailed, "No use!" and burst into sobs. Berthe Cheron, fearful now the moment had come, of beholding herself gaunt-cheeked and wrinkled, bowed her head, shuddering, in her hands. Madame de Val Fleury, half dazed with exhaustion and suspense, bent to the shining surface of the pool. The pool receded. It became suddenly unreal. Next, her pounding heart was squeezed with terror—she didn't know if the reflection she beheld was her own, or Berthe Cheron's, from behind her. She nodded wildly at her reflection; she grimaced and gesticulated at it, like a madwoman.... It had happened! She thought she gave an ear-piercing shriek of joy, but she fainted, without a sound.

---

After the money was paid she neither saw nor heard anything of Berthe Cheron. Aided by a lady whose birth gave her the passport to society, and whose income made her amenable to a financial offer, madame de Val Fleury, or, as she now called herself, Victorine de Beaulieu, was the sensation of Paris that autumn. The consummate toilettes permitted by her wealth lent to her face a beauty even more transcendent than Berthe Cheron's had been. When she drove, people pressed forward on the sidewalks to regard her. When she entered her box at the OpÉra, everybody in the house to whom the box was visible looked at her as much as at the stage. In salons, faces the most admired before her advent paled in her presence, like candle flames in sunshine. She was paramount and she revelled in the knowledge. Yet the transformation had its lack. She missed her game of ÉcartÉ with her erstwhile neighbour. She missed the garrulity of familiar friends whom she no longer met. There were hours when, despite the transports afforded by the mirror now, she found time hang heavy on her hands. And the hands, of course, had not recovered girlishness and beauty. Nor her body, nor her mind.

That was the drawback. Only her face was young. Physically and mentally she was old. Her corsetiere could not provide her with a figure to match the face. Her physician could not give back to her the energies that had gone. Her mirror itself was impotent to revive the enthusiasm and illusions of her youth.

Men made love to the bewildering "young widow." After the first thrill of amazed exultance she was bored. Their fervour kindled no responsive spark. Her aged heart beat no faster. The sentiment, the rhapsodies poured into her ear seemed drearily stupid to the old woman, as she posed on balconies, wishing she were in her bedroom with a cup of tisane and her slippers. During the third passionate proposal addressed to her, it was with extreme difficulty that she restrained her jaws from yawning.

"Why are you so cold—why won't you hear me?" men cried to her. And she answered dully: "I am not impressionable. It doesn't interest me to be made love to. I am tired of all that."

And she was spoken of in Paris as the "girl who was tired of love."

Many evenings during the winter there were when the knowledge that she would be wearied by some man's appeal, if she went out, determined her to remain at home. The opportunity to out-shine other women failed to lure her from the fireside, and she sat in her dressing-gown, playing ÉcartÉ with her new maid. "It is marvellous what a head for the game madame has, seeing she is so young!" exclaimed the maid, awestruck. "I cannot say as much for you," snapped her mistress, mourning that quondam neighbour.

When the summer came and she went to the coast, with a score of wonderful dresses, she sighed for companionship more drearily yet. Hitherto, at such places, she had sat among her compeers, amiably chatting. Now she appeared too young to be congruous to the circle of the old—was too old to participate in the pastimes of the young. Scant of breath and stiff in the joints, she viewed morosely the laughing women trooping to the tennis courts. Shrunken beneath her youthful frocks, she dared not don a bathing costume and reveal her wasted form among the sirens lolling by the tents. Queer as the fact seemed, her years irked her more this summer than they had done while she looked her age.

The anniversary of the miracle found her in low spirits, and suffering from lumbago.

There was a lad, attractive, promising, on the threshold of a career—such a lad as, thirty-eight years earlier, she had pictured her baby growing up to be. She had made his acquaintance at a "feeve o'clock," where, being so young, he felt shy, and where to find himself speaking to this enchantress confused him more still. But her tone had promptly relieved him of his dread that he ought to play the courtier. When she invited him to call on her, she asked him as she might have asked a schoolboy. Her interest in Guy Verne's ambitions yielded to her gradually a healthier outlook. Stranger still, as the months passed, a real and deep affection stole into the old egoist's nature. She was less purposeless, less futile for it. Almost, as she entered into his boyish forecasts, and made fight of his little setbacks, it seemed to her as if her son had lived.

One day the boy flung his arms round her and begged her to be his wife.

It was horrible. She repulsed him, shuddering.

"Don't, Guy, don't!"

Entreaties poured from him.

"If you understood!" she moaned. "I shall have gone to my grave while you're a young man."

He thought she meant that she was very ill.

"I'll nurse you back to health. Victorine, I love you with all my soul."

"You don't love me a bit," she said. "There is nothing in me for you to love—I am as utterly different from you as if there were fifty years between us; you only imagine you love me because you admire my face. Good heavens, have I ever said a single word to lead you to think I cared for you in such a way?"

An English boy might have suffered as much, but would have taken it more quietly. This boy was French, and he did not hide what he felt. He answered vehemently that she had led him to think so every time they talked of his future. "If you didn't care for me, why should it interest you?" He raved of his broken heart. He loaded her with reproaches. "You've shammed to me, mocked me, just to amuse yourself!"

"No." She was crying. "I am fond of you—fonder of you than of anybody in the world. But not like that. I shall never care like that again for anyone."

"I wish I had never seen you. I wish I were dead."

"You mustn't come here any more," she found the strength to tell him—and not till then had she realised how very dear he had become to her.

"I'm so sorry, Guy—so dreadfully sorry."

He fell at her feet, imploring her anew. He broke down, and besought one kiss before he left her. Her misery was deeper than his as she bent to him, but the boy didn't know it.

"My God," he sobbed, "I adore you—and you kiss me as if you were my mother!"

The mirror provided no comfort in her loss. She stared, lonely, at the alien face reflected—stared at it, by slow degrees, with aversion. It was not she. The unlovely form and jaded mind were she—the spent passion, and the infirmities. What benefit was the face of youth without youth's pulses? The mirror mocked her weary thoughts each day.

Upon her grief a woman, white-lipped and shaken, intruded to upbraid her.

"You have ruined my son's career," she said. "He neglects his work, he thinks of nothing but you. I hope and pray you may be punished as you deserve!"

"At Guy's age a career is not ruined by a foolish attachment," pleaded madame de Val Fleury piteously.

"And at yours such an answer is abominable," cried the other. "You do not lessen your guilt by cynicism. If ever a girl encouraged a young man, you encouraged my son. Foolish as his devotion to you may be, he is devoted to you. By what right did you tempt him to come here constantly if you had no tenderness for him? Your treatment of him has been infamous."

"As a mother, do you know only one kind of tenderness, madame? My affection for your son was true and great. My interest in his future was no less deep than yours. I swear to you that what has happened distresses me so much that I have been able to think of nothing else."

Madame Verne advanced upon her with clenched hands.

"Your hypocrisy is even more revolting than your cynicism. If I know more than one kind of tenderness? Yes. But not in a girl for a young man! You swear to me you are distressed. I swear to you something else. My boy is all I have—and I am frightened for him; I do not know what he may do in his despair. If I lose him he shall be revenged. Take care, madame de Beaulieu. If you hear of his death, take care! The very next day, if possible, or the next month, or the next year—whenever I can reach you—as Heaven is my witness, I will mark that face of yours with vitriol."

She rang the bell, and went—and the maid that entered found her mistress in a swoon upon the floor.

For a week her shattered nerves kept madame de Val Fleury abed. And for several weeks terror prevented her from setting foot outside the flat. She had a grille constructed in the door, and a hundred times she repeated to the servants that it was not to be opened for the merest instant to madame Verne, or any stranger. Such precautions could not yield composure, however. The day was rendered ghastly with false alarms; and when she glanced at the mirror, dread flared upon her now a face seared and repulsive, a mutilated, sightless thing of horror. The night brought dreams so fearful that she was, more than once, wakened by a scream that had burst from her. Thrice the awfulness of the tension impelled her to falter, through the telephone, sympathetic and ingratiating inquiries to madame Verne; and when the mother rang off without vouchsafing a reply, the poor old creature tottered with panic.

At last, towards the close of February, she had the unspeakable relief of learning that madame Verne and her son had gone to Monaco, and once again she was able to step into her car with a sense of safety. Nevertheless, the thought of the unhappiness that she had brought upon the boy was black in her mind. She tried to thrust the thought aside by reading, but fiction had lost its power to charm her. Gradually, as her health improved, she turned, for respite from her sad reflections, to the theatre. When there remained no more fashionable programmes for her to see, she would adventure the second-rate. One night, as she was coming out of a little theatre in the Montmartre quarter, she started and stopped short, trembling in every limb at a sight that met her gaze. She could not withdraw her gaze—she was magnetised by the sight; it thrilled her as if the dead had risen to her view. She was looking at the face that had been hers—she was looking at Berthe Cheron.

Berthe Cheron, handsomely dressed, had also jerked to a standstill, and for a few seconds the two fronted each other dumbly—the young girl's puckered eyes, her furrowed cheeks rancorous with regret. It was she who was the first to speak.

"Blast you!" she said.

"What do you mean—I treated you fairly, didn't I?" stammered madame de Val Fleury.

"I wish—I wish——" Resentment choked her.

"I paid all you wanted."

"Paid? It wouldn't have been good enough if you'd paid a million. You knew—you knew who was getting the best of it. Paid? What's the use of the money without any fun? Do you think fine clothes make up for that? I want to be danced with, I want to be kissed. To hell with your money—I want love!"

"Don't talk so loudly, don't! That man's looking at us."

"He's not looking at me. No man ever looks at me. Paid? If we were both as we were, you could pay some other fool—it wouldn't be me you'd get!"

"If we were both as we were, I'd pay no one," groaned madame de Val Fleury.

"What?"

"It's true. Quite, quite true."

For a moment they were silent again, studying each other. Then madame de Val Fleury said breathlessly:

"I want to ask you something. Come home with me—get into my car. Don't abuse me any more, don't rail at me—I'm an old woman and I can't bear it."

As the car bore them away, she explained herself, weeping.

"I know it seems strange to you, my not being satisfied—I know I've got the things you want so much. But you retain the capacity to enjoy those things, and I don't. If I could have had your youth as well, it would have been different. The old are happiest in their old ways, with their old friends. We both made an error. If—do you think, if we were to go there again——?" Berthe Cheron turned to her wildly. "If we were to go there again?" she gasped.

"If we were to go there again—in humbleness of spirit this time, in contrition, beseeching pardon for our error—do you think it might be undone?"

"Oh, let us try, let us try!" cried the girl, seizing her hand. And she, too, wept. "But I could not refund more than about half the money," she faltered, dismayed.

"I would not ask you to refund a son of it," said madame de Val Fleury. "You should keep it as a marriage portion."

In the flat they talked till late, mingling their tears and comforting each other.

Nearly four months had to pass before the coming of the date they craved, but on the evening of the 6th of September the two victims of their own folly reached St. Pierre des Champs once more. And in the eerie market-place, the lanterns swayed amid the flitting figures, and again they heard the shrill clamour of the crone, shuffling among the naked stalls. "Fine faces cheap!" And the long, long night grew cold, and the penitents' teeth chattered; and as the elder knelt and prayed, as never had she prayed before, the pebbles bit into her knees.

---

A few days afterwards, monsieur Septfous, in the private office of the bank, saw the door open to admit a caller that surprised him.

"My dear madame de Val Fleury," he exclaimed, "how delighted I am to greet you! Dare I hope you have returned to Paris for good?"

"For good, my friend—the country got on my nerves. At my time of life not every change is desirable," replied the old lady, beaming.

And subsequently one man said to another:

"Funny thing; at Bullier last night I saw a girl just like madame de Beaulieu, who vanished to New York or somewhere—excepting that she had her arms round a chap's neck and looked so happy."

"Lucky chap, by Jove! Know him?"

"A fellow called Guy Verne."

---

XII

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1918

DEAR NELLY,

I was in the theatre last night, just to have a look at you again, and I saw you when you came out of the stage door. Saw the toff and the taxi waiting to take you to supper. Wonder if you can call my name to mind any more? Alf. Alf that was your sweetheart when you were in the fancy department at Skinner and Mopham's. Loved you true, I did.

Remember the early closing days when we used to go to the theatre together, Nelly? Remember me taking you to supper at the ham and beef shop four years ago? Wouldn't set foot in the ham and beef shop now, would you? No class. But I've been fair sick with longing for the sight of it, myself, since the day I joined up, and you cried in the City Road, with your arms round my neck. Bright as heaven it looked, the gas shining on all the sausages, when I was all over lice in the line, with my jaws chattering. Thought of it just as I was going over the top once. Saw the chap in his white jacket, cutting a sandwich and smearing the mustard on. Saw him plain.

Bit I read in a London paper over there said the "pre-war time, now it had passed away, seemed like an evil dream." It didn't seem like that to me. The "bad old days of peace," the paper called it. Said all us boys would "find it painful to go back to business, after the great romance and glory of war." I don't think. I know one of them that would have given something to be back, calling "Sign," in the bad old days of peace, while he was sticking that great romance. Made me feel funny all over to see London again at last, and look at the "civilian population that was bearing their trials with such heroic fortitude." Too good to be true it felt, till I got a mouthful of what they call beer in this better world I hear we've made, and found the lord duke behind the bar treating me as if I was dirt. Made me wonder if paying sixpence for half a pint was asking for charity. Seem to have forgotten how to be civil, all the publicans, now it's the law for them to loaf the best part of the day, and make you pay so that they do as well in one week as they used to do in three. That's what I'm told by a chap, whose uncle has got a pub—the profit on one week's loafing is about the same as it was on three weeks' work. Done too well in the shops to be civil, too, I notice, while I've been freezing and bleeding in that there great romance. It's "Hope the war lasts for ever," isn't it? Mother couldn't bear to go out, because of what the neighbours are saying. People with sons of their own, too. It makes me wonder who I've been doing it for. There's mother—and there used to be you. Makes me wonder about lots of things, religion and that. At church, on Sunday, the collection was for teaching our Christianity to the heathen, the peaceful heathen that aren't busy bombing one another. And nobody laughed.

Don't make any mistake. I'm not saying England hadn't got to fight. England had got to fight, right enough, because it ain't a civilised world. But the parsons, and the priests, and the rabbis, and the papers could have said how horrible it was, our not having learnt any way to settle things, ever since we took to wearing clothes, except new ways of slaughtering one another. They hadn't got to pretend war was something fine, and splendid, and improving. They hadn't got to pretend war had changed every woman in England to a holy angel, and Englishmen were "finding their souls" by driving bayonets through other men's bellies. England couldn't help going to war, but England could have helped praising war. We were told, at the start, as how Armageddon had been led up to by those German writers that had "preached the devilish doctrine" that war did good. They must have had a rare job, if they preached it more than our own newspapers were preaching it before a month was up. Those of them that I saw, anyhow. If the war has been such an "ennobling influence," if it has "purified" us all half, or a quarter as much as they keep on saying, the Kaiser must be the best benefactor England ever had. Then why don't they put up a monument to him in Trafalgar Square?

And what did they want to put the "Great War" for on the shrines I see? I should have thought they might have found a better word for it than "great." Ain't "great" bringing up the kids to hold with the lie that war is an ennobling influence, like the savages do? If I had my way, I'd put the "Crudest War," or the "Worst War" on all the shrines.

Remember how I used to hate Gus Hooper for his conscientious objector lay? Well, I'm not keen on him now—Hooper may have been a swine—but I've come to see that, if war is ever done away with, it will be just because the real conscientious objectors are top dog. I expect by then they won't be called conscientious objectors, and it will sound strange to read how, in our time, there weren't more than a few men or women that didn't think it a virtue to commit murder if you put on khaki. Even ladies you can't say too much for—I mean, real ladies, not our disgraceful sort, them that have been heroines, a lot of them, and worked themselves to shadows—I've heard more than one of them put in a good word for war, with "They say war brings out men's best qualities." You could hear that, under their pity for us, they approved of war. It did come on me as a shock. I used to think we were all so up-to-date, all the finished article, if you know what I mean. I don't think anybody will look the same to me again, quite, no matter how smart they are dressed. When you look at people in the streets now, you can often fancy them as Ancient Britons, coming along naked. There's nothing that looks quite the same. Not sunshine in the parks. You cheer up wonderful, for a minute, and then you feel as if the sunshine was camouflage, too. War won't ever be done away with because kaisers and governments leave off wishing they could grab something that somebody else has grabbed first—it isn't in human nature—but only because they can't get men willing to kill, and be mangled for it. "Civilised warfare?" Might as well talk about Peaceful massacre. Why, if this bloody world of ours was civilised, there'd have been no need for England to go to war, or Belgium to go to war, or anybody else to go to war. No need for Fritz to go to war. We shouldn't have had the Worst War at all. Bill, and his war gang would have been seized by the Germans themselves, and clapped into gaol, or a lunatic asylum, according to what the doctors said about them.

Went over to Skinner and Mopham's, hoping to find you. They haven't done so bad, neither, with their heroic fortitude. I'm told the girls that used to run in for six-three-farthing quills for their hats have been buying separation allowance coats at thirty guineas as fast as hands could pick them off the hooks. Still, Mopham passed the time of day with me quite familiar, considering. "Proud thought for a young fellow that he's done his duty to his country," he says. "Only wish I'd been of military age, myself," he says. "See our Roll of Honour in the window? Framed very stylish, I think. Spared no expense to make it a handsome article. What for you, miss? Furs, forward!"

It was there that I heard you had gone wrong. "The women are splendid!" What price the rest? Made me feel queer last night, being so close to you again, Nelly, though you didn't recognise the bit of my face that the bandages let you see. I was the cripple by the door of the taxi, when you and the toff got in.

ALF.

---

XIII

A POT OF PANSIES

This afternoon it chanced that three men, who used to be firm friends, were all sitting in the CafÉ de la Paix at the same time. They pretended not to notice one another. And to-night my thoughts keep reverting to a pot of pansies, the pot of pansies that was so great a power.

I exaggerate nothing. It is I, Pierre Camus, pressman, who affirm it.

Jacques Rouelle still struggled as a writer of short stories, and Henri Dufour was already succeeding as a playwright, but they remained as cordial as ever. No jealousy on the one side, nor pomposity on the other. Their wives, too, were on affectionate terms; in fact, the women were cousins. As for me, I was the comrade of them all. In their modest flat—a great name for two rooms—Jacques and Blanche Rouelle would read to me manuscripts, and bewail the terms Jacques got for them; and in their little villa, off the rue Pergolese, Henri and Elise Dufour would talk to me of some comedy that Henri was perpending, and even confide to me their discomfiture when he had one declined. Two devoted couples; five ardent friends. And then, by a stroke of fate, Jacques discovered the pot of pansies!

I had gone to see him one day, and found that he was out. Blanche, however, was at home, and Elise had just dropped in, bringing a toy or something for the child. Very charming and fashionable she looked, though I knew her well enough to be sure she had put on one of her shabbiest costumes for the visit. She told us that Henri had begun the penultimate act of the play on which he had been at work ever since the spring, and that he had talked of it recently to Martime, who was much attracted by the thesis. She was in high feather, and her elation was natural. Martime had produced an earlier piece of Henri's, but that had been no guarantee that he would like this one, and I knew that Henri's heart was set on his playing the leading part.

"Mind you don't forget to send Jacques and me tickets for the dress rehearsal," said Blanche blithely.

"As if we were likely to forget you! Or Pierre either," said the other, smiling to me. "Of course we don't know yet that Martime will do the piece, but he was so enthusiastic about the theme, and his part is so good, that we're pretty confident. I daresay he will want some silly alterations made, but I don't think there's much doubt about his taking it, when it's ready."

"How lovely to be able to write for the theatre!" Blanche exclaimed. "Think, all the money Jacques has had from editors, with his royalties from Contes du Quartier as well, is not anything like as much as Henri can make with a single play!" And, as if fearing that her cousin might misconstrue her plaint, she added emotionally, "Not that I grudge him his good fortune, Heaven knows!"

"I know it, too, chÉrie," responded Elise, squeezing her hand. "Jacques' innings will come. I am very sure it will come. It is atrocious that Henri and I should have all the luck in the meantime."

The vivacity seemed to be taking a solemn turn, so I put in, "And what about me? For me both your households are too wealthy—I blunder in knowing either of you. A pauper should never have rich friends."

"Tiens! That is a novel philosophy," said Elise inquiringly.

"It is sound. What do they yield him? At best, an invitation to dinner. Which does not compensate for the despondence he suffers in contrasting their grandeur with his garret. The poor devil of discretion associates with people even worse off than himself—and by comparison feels prosperous."

"You old humbug!" they laughed at me. And addressing Blanche again, Elise Dufour said, "Wait till those dividends come rolling in! He will gnash his teeth more than ever, won't he?"

"Dividends?" said I. "What dividends? Who dares to mention dividends in front of me?"

"Ah! he hasn't heard," cried Blanche, recovering her buoyancy. "Henri is going to get a hundred shares for Jacques in a company that is coming out. We should not be able to get them ourselves, but the man is a friend of Henri's. What do you think of it, our making investments? Isn't it great?"

"It is true," said Elise, nodding. "It will be a very good thing. Henri means to apply for quite a lot."

I could guess what it was, though, not being a capitalist, I paid no heed to the Bourse and was absolutely ignorant whether Amalgamated Pancakes were heavy, or Funded Fireworks had gone up. Henri had chanced to speak of it to me. I had no doubt that Jacques might do much worse than hold a hundred shares in that concern.

"What do you think of it?" repeated Blanche. "We have been working eight years to save three thousand francs—won't it seem wonderful to have a few francs that we haven't worked for at all coming in every year?"

She went on talking about it after Elise had gone. "It will be like something in a fairy tale, to have a little money falling regularly to us from the skies, as it were. What it will mean! Even Henri and Elise do not know. We shall be in a position to indulge in pleasures that sound fantastic now. For instance, if Jacques is out of sorts, I shall be able to pack him off to the country to get well. To-day he would not hear of such a thing—he would not touch our nest-egg if he were on his last legs. And the little one! What joy to buy Baby's clothes without dipping into that! To buy him perhaps a little fur coat out of money that poor Jacques has not had to whip his brains for. Won't he look sweet, the pet, dressed in dividends? I wish that you could take some shares, Pierre. But I know."

Then Jacques returned, seemingly deep in thought, and I said: "Come in and make yourself at home. Congratulations, my financial magnate!"

"Hein?" he queried. "What? Oh, that! Yes. It had slipped my mind for the moment." He went over to his wife and kissed her tenderly. It appeared that he had been out for two or three hours, and he demanded, with deep anxiety, if the child still thrived.

"Mais oui, goose. He sleeps in there," said Blanche. "The shares had slipped thy mind? Ah, but listen, thou dwellest overmuch on thy work—in the end thou wilt have a breakdown."

"But no, but no, little woman. On the contrary, never have I felt more fit. I have just seen something that is positively inspiring," he announced. "I have seen a suggestion for a short story that is exquisite."

"So?" We were all attention.

"Quite by accident. I had been walking aimlessly, wandering without noting where I turned, when in the twilight I found myself in a long street of decay that struck a chill to my heart. The slatternly, forbidding houses had an air of hopelessness, of evil that made me shudder. I tried to classify the denizens, but well as I know Paris, I was baffled. I had the impression of entering a street of mysteries. It was as if, behind each of those morose, darkling windows, lowering upon me in their hundreds, there lurked gruesome things. Suddenly, on the foul ledge of a ground-floor window, dim with dirt, behind which some nameless stuff was looped, further to hide the secrets of the room, I saw blooming?—a pot of pansies! I cannot tell you how infinitely fresh its fairness looked in these surroundings, how divinely incongruous! I stood gazing at it a full minute, lost in conjecture. Who, in that sinister house, retained the sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? What message did it yield her? How did she come to be there? 'Mon Dieu,' I said, 'a story! A great story!' I was enraptured. When I reached a decent quarter, I sat down on a bench, and lit a cigarette, and prepared to welcome the delicious plot that I foresaw emerging from my reverie."

"Tell it to us," we begged him.

The fervour of Jacques' tones abated. They were flat when he replied.

"Strange to say, it did not emerge," he said. "I have not been able to find it yet."

"It will arrive," we cried, with conviction. "There should be an excellent story in that."

"Ah, certainly it will arrive. My only misgiving is that I am not worthy to treat it. It should be a gem, that story, a masterpiece. It should be a story that will live.... All the same, it piques me that, with such a stimulus to write, I should have to wait, even for an hour. I am athirst to begin."

"You will strike the idea before you go to bed," I assured him. "Even I, though fiction is not my line, can see a story there."

"You can see it?" he inquired eagerly.

"I do not mean that I see the plot. But I see the prospects."

"Ah, yes, that is how it is with me," he said. "The prospects are magnificent, aren't they? What delight I shall take in this! I may not be capable of handling it as well as it deserves, but you are going to see the best short story I have ever done, mon vieux."

Well, changes in the staff transferred me abruptly to London soon after that, and I had no further conversation on the subject with Jacques till nearly five months had passed. The interval had threatened to be longer still, but one must eat. Why can't you cut an English cook's throat? If you don't know the answer you are unaware that in England they placidly consume anything that is put on their plates. Because there are no English cooks. I should like frequently to sojourn in the beautiful countryside of England, if it were not so painful to see vegetables growing there. When I looked at those verdant young things, so full of flavour and nutriment, and thought of the fate before them—reflected that they were destined to be drowned in hogsheads of water, and served as an unpalatable pulp, the sight of them used to wring my heart. I overtook Jacques in the Champs ÉlysÉes one day, as I was on my way to call on Henri and Elise, and we strolled along together. I said: "I rather thought you would send me a copy of that story you were speaking of before I went. What paper was it published in?"

To my amazement, he replied gloomily: "It is not written. I am seeking the plot for it."

"What?" I exclaimed. "Not written? After five months? If you could turn out other stories in the meantime, why not that one?"

"I have not turned out other stories in the meantime," he told me. "I am concentrating my imagination on the pot of pansies."

I stopped and stared at him. "Ah, Ça! Are you in earnest? Mon Dieu! It looked very promising, but if you mean to spend the rest of your life trying to write it, the promise will cost you dear."

"I know it is unpractical of me," he owned distressfully. "I have eaten up a pretty penny. I reproach myself. But the fascination is overwhelming. I cannot withstand it. The thing has become an obsession. I have been back a dozen times, in all weathers, to look at the house again. But the course has not advanced me. In desperation, I even rang the bell and asked to see the occupant of that room, but the crone who opened the street-door was either so deaf, or so artful, that it was impossible to make her understand what I said. Let us talk about it! There are only three points to resolve. Who, in a house like that, has still the sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? What does it say to her? By what circumstances is she there?"

"I remember, I remember," I said. "I am not provided with answers to such conundrums at any moment of the day. But I could have answered them in less than five months, I'll swear." I added, "If you like, I will find the plot for you, in a quarter of an hour, some time, when I have nothing else to do." I did not mean it very seriously, and, of course, I am a busy man.

At this juncture, we saw Henri approaching—a deuce of a swell in his frock-overcoat and chamois gloves, though his figure was more protruberant than it had been in the period when he was among the Great Unacted. He hailed us with: "You rascals, you negligent knaves! If you greet me once in a century, it is by chance. How are you, darlings?"

"We meant to honour you with a visit now," I said. "As it is, we will go on and see Elise. Come back and see her too."

"Elise has gone to a matinÉe," said Henri. "You shall take a little ta-ta with me, instead. I am on topping terms with myself, and need someone to listen to my boasts. I read my play to Martime this week. All is well. When I finished, tears were in his eyes."

"Good business!" We exulted hardly less than he.

"When will it be seen?" asked Jacques. "Will he make it his next production?"

"Ah, that is not settled. For that matter, he has not actually agreed to take it. But he has got the script, and he is to write to me in a few days. I know well enough what is going to happen; I shall have to agree that the leading woman's part ought to be less strong. And then he will tell me the play is flawless."

"You do not mind sacrificing her?"

"If I mind? Well, naturally I mind. Mais que voulez-vous? My primary desire is Martime. His vanity is colossal, but it is a man's play, and no other actor on the stage could do what he will do with it. I constructed it for him from the start. You may be sure I will make concessions rather than lose Martime. Ah, we are rejoicing! This piece means a great deal to us, you know—it is ambitious work. With this, if it succeeds, I—en effet, I am promoted to the front rank."

"You are not at the foot of the class now," I said.

"Ah! But I have written for fees rather than for fame. It was not good enough to clothe my wife and children in rags because I aspired to wear laurels. The day I entreated Elise to marry a boy who had not five hundred francs, I was guilty of a crime. I have never forgotten the confidence she showed in me that day—nor her unwavering belief in me while times were bad. In truth, my wife has but one failing—she admires me to excess. According to her, every word I write, or speak, is inspired. But it is not odious to be worshipped. She is adorable. I ask myself what I should do without her. They may say some of the pieces I have done so far are of no account; I assure you I have had far more joy from scribbling a farce that bought smart costumes or a bracelet for Elise than I could have had from evolving classics that left her worried about the washing bill. Enfin, everything comes at last to him who waits—even a fine day in London, hein?—and now I have felt entitled to devote twelve months to a grand attempt. And, if it is well received—I do not romance when I say that, if it is well received, the thing that will make me proudest will be the admiration of my dear wife."

While he talked on, opening his heart to us, we strode towards the Boulevard; and as we proceeded to the Boulevard, with never a premonition of disaster, it is not hyperbolic to affirm that all Paris would have failed to display a trio more united.

Presently he inquired of Jacques: "Anything wrong with you? You are very quiet."

"I search for a plot," sighed our friend; and was long-winded.

"He has been able to think of nothing but the enchanting story that ought to blossom from that flower-pot, and doesn't," I explained. "By this time he might have——"

"The points I ponder are three," Jacques broke in strenuously. "Who, in such environment, has the fingering sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? What does it express to her? How does it happen that she is there?"

"I do not see anything in it," said Henri. "It has no action."

"How the devil can it have action before there is a plot?" screamed Jacques. "I tell you, the atmosphere is superb."

"It is a picture, not a story. There is no material in it," complained Henri. "You have everything to create, except the scene. The scene is good, but——"

We were still discussing the question, sipping vermouth at a cafÉ, when someone exclaimed: "Ah, you! How goes it?" And, looking up, I saw that the cordial hand upon the dramatist's shoulder pertained to no less eminent a person than Martime himself.

"Numa!" Henri was delighted; the more so when Martime consented to sit down at our table and sip an apÉritif, too.

"Permettez. Two of my oldest friends—monsieur Camus, of L'Elan; monsieur Rouelle, romancier."

The actor-manager did not allow us to imagine we met upon terms of equality, but his greetings were gracious. To be candid, I had been somewhat impressed to hear our chum call him by his Christian name. I knew, of course, that Henri was agog to learn whether a decision had been reached about his play, and I mentally applauded his air of absorption while Martime expatiated upon his performance in the present piece. After some minutes I glanced at Jacques, with a view to our leaving the pair together, but before we could move, Henri, desirous no doubt of cloaking his eagerness, said lightly:

"As you arrived, we were in the midst of a literary controversy. Monsieur Rouelle detects promise of a great story where I see none. The point is not uninteresting." Whereupon he launched into a description of the street, and did justice to the pansies, though Jacques did not look as if he thought so.

"C'est trÈs bien, Ça," said Martime, with weighty nods. "It is very fine, that. Let me tell you that you have there a poem." In no more authoritative a tone could the Academy have spoken.

"Ah!" cried Jacques. "You feel it, monsieur? There, in that vile spot, the fairness and fragrance of those pansies——"

"Not 'fragrance,'" said Henri; "pansies have no smell."

"——struck a note sensationally virginal," continued Jacques, with defiance.

"Oui, oui," concurred Martime. I suppose it was no trouble to him to do these things, but the ideality he threw into his eyes was worth money to see. We all regarded him intently, and I think he liked the situation. Even more ideality flooded his gaze, and he propped a temple with two fingers. "I am not of your opinion, mon cher," he told Henri profoundly. "I find it admirable."

"The three questions that besiege one, monsieur," burst forth Jacques—and I shuddered—"are, who, biding amid decay, has the imperishable sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? Of what does it speak to her? How comes it that she is there?"

And now it was that the famous man was tempted to a fall.

"Tout À fait admirable," he repeated. "But"—he displayed a cautionary palm—"above all, no melodrama! The keynote is simplicity. Simplicity and tenderness. For example, in the squalid room sits a young girl, refined though poor—a sempstress. She dreams always of the sylvan vales that she has left, and the lover who is seeking for her. And—it would be very charming—one day the lover passes the window while she waters the pansies."

"Oh, my dear Numa, bosh!" exclaimed Henri genially.

No sooner had he said it than he recognised his error, I am sure. Martime's eyes flashed poniards, and his face turned turnip colour with offence. Perceiving his indignation, Jacques began to stammer hasty insincerities, and Henri also did his utmost to palliate the affront, but I could not persuade myself that their efforts were successful. For a minute or two Martime remained stiff and monosyllabic, and then, with a few formal words, got up and went.

"I fear he was annoyed," murmured Jacques.

"You 'fear'!" said Henri irascibly. I was dismayed to hear resentment in his tone.

Though Martime had gone the constraint continued; and it was not long before we rose.

As Henri and I walked on, after Jacques had parted from us, I said: "Very stupid of Martime. You spoke in quite a friendly way."

"And still more stupid of Jacques to talk about the story to him," he flung back, at white heat. "What possible interest could Jacques' difficulties have for Martime? Childish!"

"But—pardon me, it was you who first mentioned the matter," I said.

"Ah, don't split straws," he growled. Clearly, the incident disturbed him more than a little.

It was probably a week or ten days afterwards that Jacques came to me in great perturbation and volleyed, "What do you think? Henri has got his knife into me! It appears that Martime has returned the play, and Henri says it is my fault."

"Oh, nonsense!" I said. "How can he say that? Returned the play? I am dreadfully sorry."

"I too. But what have I got to do with it? Did you ever hear anything more preposterous? To begin with, it is not likely that Martime would refuse the piece solely on account of what was said that day; and, even if he did so, it was not I who said it. It wasn't till yesterday I knew there was anything wrong. Blanche met Elise. Elise's manner was rather strange, and Blanche wondered. But she had no idea there was any ill-feeling. Naturally! She inquired if Henri had heard from Martime yet. Then it came out."

"That Henri held you responsible?"

"Blanche was condoling. She said, 'What a cruel disappointment for you both, dear!' And Elise said coldly, 'Yes, indeed; it is very unfortunate that Jacques discussed his affairs in front of Martime.' Blanche, poor girl, was thunder-struck. Of course, she explained to Elise exactly what had happened. But Elise replied with something very vague, and when I telephoned to Henri he was not himself with me at all—he was very brusque. He said,' I have no wish to talk about the matter.' There is not the least doubt that he is angry."

"I will have a chat with him," said I.

I went the following day. But he had gone to have a Turkish bath, and Elise, who received me, begged me not to mention the play when I saw him. "His finest work, that took him a year to do, practically wasted!" she said, in a stunned fashion. "It is frightful. He is stricken. It would be kinder of you not to say anything about it to him yet awhile. I'll tell him that you came."

"But 'practically wasted'?" I demurred. "He will be able to place it with some other management, will he not?"

"He may. But it is not the kind of play for every management. And, anyhow, we shall not get Martime in the part. It will never now be the immense success that it would have been. What an idiot to reject a great part because his vanity was wounded!"

"You are certain that is the explanation?"

"There is no question about it. The script was returned in the most formal way—a line to say it was 'unsuitable.' Henri was prostrate. Prostrate. My poor Henri! You may realise what a blow it was. I am feeling very anxious about him. I have persuaded him to go away for a few months—I am taking him to Biarritz. What a calamity his meeting Jacques that afternoon!"

"Ah, but listen," I urged. "Jacques is terribly cut up that Henri is bitter against him. And, between ourselves, it is a shade unjust. It was not Jacques who affronted Martime, nor even Jacques who first referred to the subject. It was Henri himself."

"Henri made a passing allusion," she protested; "Jacques made an eternal discussion of it. He would never let it drop. Henri is never unjust, he is fairness itself; I have never known anyone who was as fair as Henri always is. Also, he is not 'bitter' against Jacques—we are not so small-minded that we forget old friendships because of an indiscretion. When we come back I shall, of course, go and see Jacques and Blanche as usual. I have nothing against Blanche—it was not her fault that Jacques was so tactless."

Oh, well. Useless to try to convince people of what they don't want to believe! I told Jacques that she and Henri were going away, and predicted that he would find the unpleasantness over when they returned. And, as a matter of fact, I did not attach deep importance to it until a certain morning. The sight of a prospectus led me to inquire of Jacques if the shares he had been counting on were allotted to him. He answered passionately, "No."

At that I was startled. I asked if he had made an application for them.

"I did not see anything about it soon enough!" he raged. "Henri had told me to leave it all to him. And not a word have I had from him. Even if I had applied, I should not have got them. What malice! Blanche is broken-hearted. I will never forgive him for her grief. It is not as if I had been seeking a gift at his hands—he could have made money for us without its costing him more than a postage stamp. An opportunity to do such a service for a friend comes to a man once in a lifetime. No; his spite against me for nothing is so intense that deliberately he turns his back on the chance! It is disgusting. We could not believe, we could not think it possible he had been such a swine, after all his promises. So I got his address from the bonne and telegraphed to him. You should see his answer—the letter of a stranger: 'On consideration, he had not cared to take the responsibility of recommending an investment to me.' Liar! Blanche cried the whole night through. I will never speak another word to him as long as I live. And I do not want to see Elise either. Blanche's own cousin, to show such animosity! What a despicable pair!"

"Words will not express my regret," I said. "And I am amazed at Henri's attitude. But you cannot be sure that Elise knows anything about it."

"Why should she not know?" he scoffed.

"I do not suppose that Henri can feel very proud of himself—he may not have confided in her. Besides, Elise said she meant to go on seeing you, the same as ever. That being so, she would hardly? encourage him to break his word to you in the meanwhile. I think you are being unfair to Elise."

"Henri has been more unfair to my poor Blanche," he bellowed. "I do not hear so much of your sympathy for her."

It was an infamous reply to make, but he was in the mood to quarrel with anyone that was handy, and I had the magnanimity to let it pass. I was sympathising sincerely with Blanche, and I sympathised even more when I saw her. She spoke with less vehemence than Jacques, but it was evident he had not exaggerated her dejection. "It seems incredible," she said. "It shows that you never really know anyone; nothing could have persuaded me that Henri had it in him to behave so badly. If you had heard him talking to us about the shares—what a benefit they would be to us! And now, to avenge himself for an imaginary wrong——" She gave a gulp. "You don't think Elise knows? Ah, yes; he and she are one in everything, I assure you! What it would have meant to us, to get dividends! However small the sums might have been, what a godsend to poor Jacques, driving his pen all day! He is working harder than ever to make up for lost time—he has had to put the thought of the pot of pansies aside for the present—and I could cry as I watch him. By the way, you were going to try to find a plot for that. Did you?"

"Nothing occurred to me," I said.

I could say nothing to cheer her, either then, or later, though I often looked in at the flat and did my best. And, to inflame the indignation, the shares rose. They rose, and went on rising. And Jacques, who had hitherto never so much as glanced at closing prices, developed a morbid interest in following their advance. I shall not forget the day, about three months after the issue, when I learnt that they were quoted at forty francs, and that, if Henri had kept his word, my host and hostess would have doubled their capital. I shall not forget it for two reasons. 1. The lamentations they gave way to were exceedingly trying to me. 2. On that very afternoon Elise walked in.

I had not known that she was back, else I should have prepared her for the situation. Blanche, ignoring the proffered embrace, tendered the tips of her fingers, and Jacques bowed, as to a woman he had never seen before. Elise turned very pale. Her scared eyes sought mine, and I tried by the warmth of my greeting to mitigate the moment for her.

"What is the matter?" she faltered of us all.

"It is only surprise at your visit," said Blanche sarcastically.

Impossible to avert it. The storm broke.

Just as I surmised, Elise had been unaware of Henri's misdeed. But though her consternation was only too apparent, Jacques and Blanche were in no mood to let it influence them. The tirade against Henri to which Jacques condemned her was bad to bear. She quivered under it. She could do nothing but stammer painfully, "I forbid you to insult my husband; I forbid you to insult my husband!" Blanche knew how to stab, too, in her pathetic voice.

"Ah, it is useless to talk, Elise," she sobbed. "As a rich woman, you do not understand what three thousand francs would have done for us! Three thousand francs! We have been scraping for eight years to put by as much as that, and if Henri had been fair to us we should have doubled our means already. Three thousand francs! To Jacques, who in all his life has never had a son that wasn't wrung out of his poor tired head! It is the wickedness towards him that I resent—towards him, and our child. And what is the cause? That Henri is unmanly enough to hate another for his own mistake. Ah, it is too petty and contemptible of him for words!"

"But remember it is not Elise's fault," I begged. I saw that she could endure no more. "Say these things to Henri, both of you, if you must—not to her!"

"Blanche is in no need of your corrections," shouted Jacques hysterically. "Attend to your own affairs. My wife talks to her cousin as she thinks fit. It is always Elise you champion. If you feel so deeply for our enemies, I wonder that you come here."

I could scarcely credit my ears. But I said very quietly, with dignity, "Indeed? I shall not put you to the trouble of wondering twice."

And, as Blanche remained silent—for which she was very culpable, for I looked towards her as I moved—I offered my arm to Elise, who was so much deranged that she could hardly get down the interminable staircase, and took her home in a cab.

As will be readily understood, I had no ambition to assist at her next conversation with Henri, and I did not intend to enter the house. Unluckily, when the cab stopped, he was on the veranda, and he came to the gate.

"Comment? What is it?" he demanded, seeing her agitation.

"She is rather upset," I said. "I won't come in."

"Yes, yes, come in! Tell him what has happened," gasped Elise peremptorily. Whereby she, in her turn, committed a grave fault, for she made me witness matrimonial dissension of which I need otherwise have had no knowledge.

"She has been to see Jacques and Blanche," I said; following them into the salon.

"Ah?" said Henri, with reserve.

"Yes, I have been to see Jacques and Blanche," she panted, "and a nice time I have had there!"

He decided on hauteur. "I am quite at a loss. If one of you will explain?"

As she looked at me, I said: "They told her you had not done as they expected about the shares. I rather gathered that there was some tendency towards feeling hurt."

"Hurt? On reflection, I saw that I had not the right to advise Jacques to speculate. What of it?"

"They do not view it as a speculation," I said.

"They! Much they know of business!"

"Did you take shares yourself?" queried Elise.

"The cases are not parallel," he contended, his voice rising excitedly. "Jacques is a poor man; I did not feel justified in letting him risk money."

"Oh, Henri," she wailed, "you know very well that was not the reason. It was not loyal of you; it was very, very wrong. Already it would have been a little fortune for them. No wonder they are aggrieved. I cannot be surprised—much as I have suffered this afternoon, I cannot be surprised at what I have had to hear."

"What you have had to hear? You have heard that I did not choose to assume the responsibility of conducting another man's affairs. And then? Ah, je m'en fiche! I am fed up with Jacques."

"I have had to hear you broke a promise because you were mean-spirited enough to blame him for your own gaffe to Martime," she cried. "Of my husband I have had to hear that! No, I cannot be surprised at what they said. They said it was petty and contemptible of you—and so it was!"

For an instant it was as if she had hurled a thunderbolt. Henri stood inarticulate, his eyes bulging from his head. Then, bringing his fist on to the table with a blow that made every ornament in the room jump, he roared:

"You dare to say it? To me, your husband, you dare to say such a thing? You shall ask pardon at once, in the presence of the friend who has heard the insult!" And, as it was obvious she would do nothing of the kind, he went on, without loss of time, "No! I forbid you to apologise—it is vain. There are insults that apologies cannot abate. A husband who is 'contemptible' to his wife is best apart from her—I can find comprehension elsewhere."

I was having a pleasant day—what with one mÉnage and the other, I was having a pleasant day. There ensued a quarrel the more harrowing from the fact that the recriminations poured from a pair whom I knew to be, at heart, lovers. And as often as I endeavoured to steal out, either Henri or Elise would pounce upon me to confirm some point that did not matter. When I got away at last my need of stimulant was insupportable.

I had, naturally, expected to receive a penitent missive from Jacques that night, and when there was a knocking at my door I did not doubt that he had come to beg forgiveness in person. But it was Henri who flung in, and dropped into a chair.

"Enfin, I go back no more," he groaned.

He took my breath away.

"You are mad," I stuttered. "What? You part from a wife you adore, and who adores you, because of a hasty word? Are you a boy, to behave so wildly? C'est inoui!"

"There are words, and words!" His face twitched and crumpled. "It is because I am not a boy that I see clearly we could never again be happy together. The madness would be to try! To sit, every day, opposite a woman who is thinking me contemptible? Merci! I could not endure it. Every meal, every moment would become a hell."

"Ah, if she were thinking it, really! But she spoke impetuously—she had had much to try her. She had only just left Jacques and——"

"Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what I owe to that man!" he vociferated. "What everlasting afflictions, his telling me of his accursed pansies! First, it annihilated my prospects, and now it rends me from my wife and children. I shall stipulate that they live with me for half the year; but what of the other half, while they are being taught that the father who loves them so dearly is a contemptible man, disgusting to their mother?" He rocked to and fro. "Also, how am I to make a home for them when they come? I leave the villa to Elise; I cannot afford two establishments—above all, now that I have lost the production by Martime, and may never see a son from work that has occupied me for a year. Malediction on that pot of pansies!"

"Now listen!" He had been to the last degree unreasonable, but he was suffering, and I have a good heart. "I guarantee that this separation will not last a week. I shall have a talk with Elise."

"With Elise? It is I who make the separation," he objected, with a piteous attempt at dignity. "And further, I have no hostility against you, but it is partly through your own talks with Elise that she is lost to me. Ah, yes!" I had stared at him, stupefied. "I understand that you said to her, at the time, that I was guilty of 'injustice' towards Jacques. I do not say you traduced me with any vicious motive, but, unquestionably, your irresponsible chatter paved the way to the catastrophe that wrecks my life."

My turpitude notwithstanding, he wept in my room till 3 a.m., keeping me up. And he, and Elise, too, proved very distressing to me during the days that followed. She was equally headstrong. I was surprised at her.

"You mean well, but pray say no more; it is inevitable," she answered me tremulously. "As for that stupid affair of Jacques and Blanche, I daresay I may have misjudged Henri. They don't understand. As a business man, no doubt he did what was really best in their own interests." I perceived that her commiseration for them had much decreased since it involved her in domestic strife. "But his conduct towards me—! I have done with him. I am not a fool, to imagine an honourable man would desert his wife for a reason like that. A performance. He did not even forget his razor strop. Let him go to her! He was not an angel—no writing man is—but I thought he loved me, and I never complained. Because I admired him, because he was the one man in the world to me. Behind the curtain it hung, not even in sight, and he did not forget it when he packed! Brute! You heard him say he could 'find comprehension elsewhere.' She will not keep his linen in such order as I have done, that I'll swear. To pretend it was just because I believed what Jacques and Blanche had said! I believe nothing that they say. I detest them. Oh, they have made a pretty mess of my life, those two!"

She was illogical, but I was much displeased with Jacques and Blanche myself. The previous day I had seen them in the street. It is true that they cast ingratiating glances, but in the circumstances they should have done a good deal more. And I, very properly, looked away.

Yes, for fully three weeks the estrangement of Henri and Elise made demands on my time. And since each of them viewed the other as the aggressor, their criticisms of each other were not unduly diffident. Nevertheless I continued to do all in my power for them. I implored Henri to return, and I besought Elise to write to him, though it was no recreation to me to keep pressing counsel upon people who told me they did not want to hear it. When there were two consecutive days without Henri despairing in my chair, the lull was welcome.

I cannot depict my joyful surprise, the next evening, on seeing them issue radiantly from the Restaurant Noel Peters, arm in arm. I had had no news of the reconciliation. I rushed to them and clasped their hands.

"Hurrah!" I exclaimed. "Thank goodness! How delighted I am the trouble is over!"

Their greeting appeared to me a shade constrained.

"Oh, that didn't amount to much," Henri mumbled, brushing my reference aside.

"No one supposed it did," laughed Elise lightly. And as I found myself at a loss what to say next, there was a pause.

"We are going to a theatre," said Henri; "we are rather late." After a glance at his wife, he added, in flat tones, "You will dine with us one night, hein?"

"Ah, yes," said Elise perfunctorily. "Of course."

When I went, we did not allude to what had happened. Nor was the conversation on general topics as animated as when I had dined there hitherto. For the first time at their table I was depressed.

And it was the last invitation from them I received. Probably I was embarrassing to them, by reason of their having railed against each other to me while they thought they would never make it up. Also, though Henri could forgive his admiring wife for once calling him petty and contemptible, one may be sure it was bitter to him to remember I had been present when she humiliated him. That both he and Elise resented my sharing the secret of their separation was as clear as daylight. For some months afterwards, if I chanced to meet them, they would stop and exchange a few words with me, but by and by they contented themselves with smiling; and, finally, they preferred to pass without perceiving that I was there. When that play of Henri's was produced, two or three years later, he had become so alien to me that I should never have dreamed of going to see it, if I had not got in for nothing. The leading man was not capable of the part, and the run was short—by which Henri's enmity against Jacques was doubtless intensified.

The two couples that used to be so intimate remain at daggers drawn. And both couples are strangers to me. I do not think there is anything to add, excepting that the story of the pot of pansies has not been accomplished to this day. The tragic history that I have related is the story of the story that was never found.

---

XIV

FLOROMOND AND FRISONNETTE

Floromond and Frisonnette, who were giddy with a sense of wealth when they acquired three rooms, and had flowers growing on their own balcony, and sat upon chairs that they had actually bought and paid for, held a reception one fine day. The occasion was a christening. Floromond and Frisonnette were, of course, monsieur and madame Jolicoeur, and they dwelt in the part of Paris that was nearest to Arcadia. Among those present were monsieur Tricotrin, the unadmired poet, monsieur Pitou, the composer of no repute, monsieur Lajeunie, whose stirring romances so rarely reached a printing office, and monsieur Sanquereau, the equally distinguished sculptor.

Though the company were poor in pocket, they were rich in benevolence, and since the dearth of coppers forbade silver mugs, they modelled their gifts upon the example of the good fairies. Advancing graciously to the cradle, the bard bestowed upon the female infant the genius of poesy: "Epics, and odes," he declared, "shall fall from her lips like the gentle dew from Heaven." "And, symphonies," said the musician, "she shall drop as nimbly as the newly rich drop needy friends." That she might be equipped more fully yet for the stress of modern life, the novelist endowed her with the power of surpassing narrative, while the sculptor, in his turn, contributed to her quiver the pre-eminence of Praxiteles.

Then Frisonnette hung over her baby, saying, "And one boon, besides: let her marry her sweetheart and always remember that a husband's love is better than an ermine cloak!"—an allusion which moved Floromond to such tenderness that he forthwith took his wife in his arms, regardless of us all; and which reminded your obedient servant of their story.

---

When Floromond beheld her first, she was in a shop window—the most tempting exhibit that a shop window had displayed to him, in all his five-and-twenty years. If he had stayed in the quarter where he belonged, it would not have happened. It was early on a spring morning, and she was posing a hat, for the enticement of ladies who would tread the rue La Fayette later in the day. Floromond, sunning himself like a lord, though he was nothing better than a painter, went on to the Garden of the Tuileries, noting how nicely the birds sang, and thinking foolish thoughts. "Had I a thousand-franc note in my pocket, instead of an importunate note from a washer-woman," ran his reverie, "I would go back and buy that hat; and when she asked me where it was to be sent, I would say, 'I do not know your name and address, mademoiselle.' Then, having departed, without another word, leaving her speechless with amazement and delight, I should never see her any more—until, not too long afterwards, we found ourselves, by accident, in the same omnibus. Ciel! how blue her eyes were."

And, though he did not omit to reprove himself, in the most conscientious manner, and the weather changed for the worse, his admiration drew him to the rue La Fayette, at the same hour, every day.

Frisonnette's demeanour, behind the plate glass, was propriety itself. But she could not be unconscious that the young man's pace always slackened in the downpour, as he approached madame Aureole's—she could not be insensible of the homage of his gaze. That Tuesday morning, when, dripping, he bowed, his salutation was so respectful that she felt she would be inhuman to ignore it.

So the time came when they trod the rue La Fayette together, making confessions to each other, after the shop shut.

"I used to wonder at first whether you noticed me as I went by," he told her wistfully.

"I noticed you from the beginning," she owned, "you have such a funny walk. The day that you were late——"

"My watch was in pawn. Sapristi, how I raced! It makes me perspire to think of it."

"I took five minutes longer than usual to dress the window, waiting for you."

"If I had guessed! And you didn't divine that I came on purpose?"

She shook her head. "I used to think you must be employed somewhere about."

"What! you took me for a clerk?" asked the artist, horrified.

"Only at the start. I soon saw you couldn't be that—your clothes were too shabby, and your hair was so long."

"I could have wished you to correct the impression by reason of my air of intellect. However, to talk sensibly, could the prettiest girl in France ever care for a man who had shabby clothes, and a funny walk?"

"Well, when she was beside him, she would not remark them much," said Frisonnette shyly. "But I do not think you should ask me conundrums until you have talked politics with my aunt; I feel sure she would consider it premature."

"Mademoiselle," said Floromond, "I am rejoiced to hear that your aunt has such excellent judgment. Few things would give me greater pleasure than to agree with her politics as soon as you can procure me the invitation."

And one day Floromond and Frisonnette descended the steps of a certain mairie arm in arm—Frisonnette in a white frock and a nutter—and the elderly gentleman in the salle des mariages, to whom brides were more commonplace than black-berries, looked after this bride with something like sentiment behind his pince-nez. A policeman at the gate was distinctly heard to murmur, "What eyes!" And so rapidly had the rumour of her fairness flown, that there were nearly as many spectators on the sidewalk as if it had been a marriage of money, with vehicles from the livery stables.

The bride's aunt wore her moire antique, with coral bracelets, and at breakfast in the restaurant she wept. But, as was announced on the menu, wedding couples and their parties were offered free admission to the Zoological Gardens; pianos were at the disposal of the ladies; and an admirable photographer executed GRATUITOUSLY portraits of the couples, or a group of their guests. At the promise of being photographed in the moire antique, a thing that had not occurred to her for thirty years, the old lady recovered her spirits; and if Tricotrin, in proposing the health of the happy pair, had not digressed into tearful reminiscences of a blighted love-story of his own, there would have been no further pathetic incident.

Floromond and Frisonnette, like foreigners more fashionable, "spent their honeymoon in Paris," for, of course, Frisonnette had to keep on selling AurÉole's hats. Home was reached by a narrow staircase, which threatened never to leave off, and after business hours the sweethearts—as ridiculously enchanted with each other as if they had never been married—would exchange confidences and kisses at a little window that was like the upper half of a Punch and Judy show, popped among the chimney-pots of the slanting tiles as an afterthought.

"It is good to have so exalted a position," said Frisonnette; "there is no one nearer than the angels to overlook us. But I pray you not to mention it to the concierge, or our rent will soon be as high as our lodging. The faint object that you may discern below, my Floromond, is Paris, and the specks passing by are people."

"They must not pass us by too long, however, Beloved," said Floromond; "I am a married man and awake to my responsibilities. It would not suit me, by any manner of means, to share you with millinery all your dear little life. More than ever I have resolved to be eminent, and when the plate glass can never separate us again, you shall have dessert twice a day, and a bonne to wash the dishes."

"My child," murmured Frisonnette, "come and perch on my lap, while I talk wisdom to you, for you are very young, and you have been such a little while in Paradise that you have not learnt the ways of its habitants. It chagrins you that you cannot give me dessert, and domestics, and a cinema every Saturday night. But because I worship you, my little sugar husband, because every moment that I pass away from you, among the millinery, seems to me as long as the rue de Vaugirard, I do not think of such things when we are together. To be in your arms is enough. Life looks to me divine—and if I find anything at all lacking in our heavens it is merely a second cupboard. Now, since you are too heavy for me, you may jump down, and we will reverse the situation."

"I have strange tidings to reveal to you," said Floromond, squeezing the breath out of her—"I adore you, Frisonnette!"

They remained so blissful that many people were of the opinion that Providence was neglecting its plain duty. Here was a thriftless painter daring to marry a girl without a franc, and finding the course of wedlock run as smooth as if he had been a prosperous grocer with branches in the suburbs! The example set to the Youth of the quarter was shocking. And a year passed, and two years passed, and still the angels might see Floromond and Frisonnette kissing at the attic window.

Then one afternoon it happened that a French beauty, hastening along the rue La Fayette with tiny, toppling steps, as if her bust were too heavy for her feet, found herself arrested by a toque on view at AurÉole's—and entering with condescension, was still more charmed by the assistant who attended to her. The chance customer was no one less important than the wife of Finot—Finot the dressmaker, Finot the Famous—and at dinner that night, when they had reached the cheese, she said to the great man:

"My little cabbage, at a milliner's of no distinction I have come across a blonde who could wipe the floor with every mannequin we boast. She is as chic as a model, and as bright as a sequin; she is just the height to do justice to a manteau; her neck would go beautifully with an evening gown; and she has hips that were created for next season's skirt."

"Let her call!" said the great man, adding a few drops of kirsch to his petit suisse.

"She would be good business, I assure you," declared the lady; "she talked me into taking a toque more than twice the price of the one I went in for—me! Well, I shall have to find a pretext for speaking to her—I must go back and see if there is another hat that I care to buy."

"It is not necessary," replied her husband; "go back and complain of the one you bought."

So the lady talked to Frisonnette in undertones, and Frisonnette listened to her in bewilderment, not quite certain whether she was twirling to the top of her ladder, or being victimised by a diabolical hoax. And the following forenoon she passed by appointment through imposing portals that often she had eyed with awe. And Finot, having satisfied himself that she had brains as well as grace—for they are very wide of the mark who think of his pampered mannequins as elegant mechanical toys—signified his august approval.

Frisonnette went home and described the splendours of the place to Floromond, who congratulated her, with a misgiving that he tried to stifle. And later on she told him of the dazzling dÉjeuners that were provided, repasts which she vowed stuck in her throat, because he was not there to share them. And, not least, she sought to picture to him the gowns that she wore and sold. O visions of another world! There are things for which the vocabulary of the AcadÉmie Francaise would be inadequate. Such clothes looked too celestial to be touched. But she was a woman. Though her head was spinning, as Finot's mirrors reflected her magnificence, though she was admiring herself inimitably, she accomplished so casual an air that one might have thought she had never put on anything cheaper in her life.

And, being a woman, she did not suffer from a spinning head very long; she soon became acclimatised.

In the daytime, Frisonnette ate delicate food, and sauntered through stately show-rooms, robed like a queen—and in the evening she turned slowly to her little old frock, and supped on scraps in the garret. And now her laughter sounded seldom there. Gradually the contentment that had found a heaven under the tiles changed to a petulance that found beneath them nothing to commend. Her gaze was sombre, and often she sighed. And the misgiving that Floromond had tried to stifle knocked louder at his heart.

By and by the little old frock was discarded and thrust out of view, and she wore costumes that made the garret look gaunter still, for with her increased salary, and commissions, she could afford such things. Floromond knew no regret when she ceased to speak of bettering their abode instead—his pride had revolted at the thought of astonishing their neighbours on his wife's money—but the smart costumes made her seem somebody different in his eyes, and moodily he felt that it was presumption for a fellow in such a threadbare coat to try to kiss her.

"What a swell you are nowadays!" the poor boy would say, forcing a smile.

And Frisonnette would scoff. "A swell? This rag!" as she recalled with longing the gorgeous toilettes that graced her in the show-room.

One treasure there she coveted with all her soul. It was an ermine cloak, so beautiful that simply to stroke it thrilled her with ecstasy. Only once had she had an opportunity of luxuriating in its folds; under its seductive caress she had promenaded, on the Aubusson carpet, for the allurement of an amÉricaine, who, after all, had chosen something else. The mannequin used to think that she who possessed it should be the proudest woman in the world, and twice the painter had been wakened to hear her murmuring rhapsodies of it in her sleep.

"If I could sell my 'Ariadne' and carry her away to some romantic cottage among the meadows!" he would say to himself disconsolately. "Then she would see no more of the fangles and folderols that have divided us—she would be my sweetheart, just as she used to be."

But the best that he could do was to sell his pot-boilers; and a romantic cottage among the meadows looked no nearer to his purse than a corner mansion in the avenue Van-Dyck.

That the fangles and folderols had indeed divided them was more apparent still as time went on—so much so that frequently he passed the evening at a cafÉ, to avoid the heartache of watching her repine. But it was really waste of coppers, for he thought of the change in her all the while; and when he lagged up the high staircase, on his return, he was remembering, at every step, the Frisonnette who formerly had run to greet him at the top.

"You are a devoted companion," she would remark bitterly, as he entered. "What do you imagine I do with myself, in this hole, all the evening, while you stay carousing outside?"

"I imagine you sit turning up your nose at everything, as you do when I am with you," he would answer, hiding his pain.

Then Frisonnette would cry that he was a bear; and Floromond would retort that her own temper had not improved, which was certainly true. And after she had exclaimed that it was false, and stamped her foot furiously to prove it, she would burst into tears, and wonder why she remained with a man who, not content with forsaking her for cafes, came home and calumniated her nose, and her temper besides.

Meanwhile Finot had been contemplating her performances on the Aubusson carpet with rising respect. His versatile mind was now projecting the winter advertisements, and he determined to entrust to his best blonde one of those duties which, from time to time, rendered the luckiest of his mannequins objects of unspeakable envy to all the rest. Finot's advertisements were conducted on a scale becoming to a firm whose annual profits ran into millions of francs.

"Mon enfant," he said to her, "you have been a very good girl. And though you may think you are rewarded royally already, as indeed you are"—and here followed an irritating dissertation upon the softness of her job, to which she listened with impatience—"I am preparing a treat for you of the first order. How would it please you to travel, for a couple of months or so, a little later on?"

"To travel, I?" she stammered.

"You and one of the other young ladies. Monte Carlo, Vienna, Rome?"

"Rome?" ejaculated Frisonnette, who had never dreamed of reaching any other "Rome" than the one on the MÉtropolitain Railway.

"Mademoiselle Piganne would contrast most effectively with your tints, I think?" He screwed up his eyes. "Y-e-s, we could hardly evolve a colour scheme more delicious than you and mademoiselle Piganne! Whatever capitals we may decide on, you will stay at the hotels of the highest standing; all matters like that you will do best to leave to the judgment of the chaperon in attendance on you both, otherwise you might have the unfortunate experience to find yourself in an hotel not exclusively patronised by the cream of Society. Your personal wardrobe, for which you will be supplied with from twelve to fourteen trunks, will consist of those creations of my art which best express my soul, and your affair will be to attract sensational attention to them, while preserving an attitude of the severest propriety. That is imperative, remember! No English or American mother, with her daughters beside her, must for a single instant doubt that you are morally deserving of her closest stare. An open carriage in the park, where the climate permits—a stage box at the opera, when the audience is most brilliant, will, of course, suggest themselves to your mind. But, again, the duenna and the man-servant will organise the programme as skilfully as they will look the parts. All that will be required of you is a display, brilliant and untiring; the rest will be done by others. Every woman everywhere will instruct her maid to find out all about you, and your own maid—an employee of the firm in a humble capacity—will have orders to whisper that you are a princess, travelling incognito, and that your dresses come from Me."

Frisonnette could do no more than pant, "I will speak about it at home, monsieur, at once!" And because she foresaw with resentment that Floromond's approval would be far from warm, she broached the subject to him very diffidently.

At the back of the little head that Finot's finery had turned, she knew well that if her "bear" betook himself too often to cafes, it was mortified love that drove him to them; so she made haste to tell him: "It might be the best thing for you, to get rid of me for a couple of months—I should return in a much better humour and you would find me quite nice again."

"You think so, Frisonnette?" said Floromond, with a sad smile.

"What do you mean?" she asked, paling.

"I mean," he sighed, "that after the 'brilliant display,' it is not our mÉnage under the tiles that would seem to you idyllic repose. Heaven knows it goes against the grain to beg a sacrifice, but if you accept such luxury, I feel that you would never bear our straits together again. Do not deceive yourself, little one; you would be leaving me, not for two months, but for ever!"

Deep in her consciousness had lurked this thought too, and she turned from him in guilty silence. "You are fond of me, then," she muttered at last, "in spite of all?"

"If I am fond of you!" groaned Floromond. "Ah, Frisonnette, Frisonnette, there is no moment, even when you are coldest, that I would not give my life for you. I curse the poverty that prevents me tearing you from these temptations and making you entirely mine once more. If I were rich! It is I who would give you boxes at the opera, and carriages in the park; I would wrap you in that ermine cloak, and pour all the jewels of Boucheron's window in your lap."

"I will not go!" she cried, weeping. "Forgive me, forgive the way I have behaved. I have been wicked, yes! But I repent, it is ended—I will not go!"

And that night she was proud and joyful to think she would not go. It was only in the grey morning that her heart sank to remember it.

"I must decline," she said to Finot hesitatingly. "I have a husband. I—I could not take my husband?"

"Mon enfant, your husband would not grudge you the little holiday without him, one may be sure."

It was like being barred from Eden. "And the ermine cloak," she faltered, "could I take the ermine cloak?"

The tempter smiled. "One cannot doubt that, among fourteen trunks, there would be room for the ermine cloak," he told her suavely.

One November evening when Floromond came in, his wife was not there. He supposed she had been detained in the show-room—until he groped for a match; and then, in the dark, his hand touched an envelope, stuck in the box. He trembled so heavily that, before he could light the lamp, he seemed to be falling through an eternity of fear.

He read: "I am leaving you because I am frivolous and contemptible. I dare not entreat your pardon. But I shall never make you wretched any more...."

When he noticed things again, from the chair in which he crouched, he found that the night had passed and daylight filled the room. He was shuddering with cold. And he got feebly up, and wavered towards the bed.

---

"She did not ponder her words," babbled the aunt, who came to him aghast—"she will return to you. When the two months are over and she is back in Paris, you will see!"

"She pondered longer than you surmise, and she will never return to me," he said. "And what is more, a man with nothing to offer can never presume to seek her. No, I have done with illusions—she will be no nearer to me in Paris than in Monte Carlo; Frisonnette's Paris and mine henceforth will be different worlds."

Floromond lived, without Frisonnette, among the clothes that she had left behind; the dainty things that she had prized had been abandoned now that she was to be decked in masterpieces. They hung ownerless, the peignoir, and tricot, and dresses—the pink, and the mauve, and the plaid—gathering the dust, and speaking of her to him always.

"She has soared above you, dish-clouts!" he would cry sometimes, half mad with misery. "It was you who first estranged us—now it is your turn to be spurned." And, as he tossed sleepless, his fancy followed her; or pacing the room, he projected some passionate indictment, which, on reflection, he never sent.

"You should try to work," his reason told him. "If you worked, you might manage to forget in minutes." And, setting his teeth, he took palette and brush and worked doggedly for hours. But he did not forget, and the result of his effort was so execrable that he knew that he was simply wasting good paint.

Then, because work was beyond him, and his purse was always slimmer, he began to make dÉjeuner do for dinner, too. And not long after that, he was reducing his rations more every day. It was a haggard Floromond who threaded his way among the crowds that massed the pavements when some weeks had passed. The boulevards were gay with booths of toys and trifles now; great branches of holly glowed on the baroques of the flower-vendors at the street corners; and the restaurants, where throngs would fÊte the RÉveillon, and New Year's Eve, displayed advice to merry-makers to book their tables well ahead.

"My own rejoicings will be held at home!" said Floromond.

And, during the afternoon of New Year's Eve, it was by a stroke of irony that the first comrade who had rapped at the door since Frisonnette's flight came to propose expenditure. "Two places go begging for the supper at the CafÉ des Beaux Esprits," he explained blithely, "and it struck me that you and your wife might join our party? Quite select, mon vieux. They promise to do one very well, and five francs a cover is to include everything but the wine."

"My wife has an engagement that she found it impossible to refuse," said the painter, huddled over the fading fire. "And as for me, I am not hungry."

The other stared. "There is time enough for you to be hungry by midnight."

"That is a fact," assented Floromond; "I may be most inconveniently hungry by midnight. But I am less likely to be scattering five francs. In plain French, my dear Bonvoisin, if you could lend me a few sous, I should feel comparatively prosperous. I am like the two places at the Beaux Esprits—I go begging."

Bonvoisin looked down his nose. "I should have been overjoyed to accommodate you, of course," he mumbled, "but at this season, you know how it is. What with the pestilential tips to the concierge, and the postman, and one thing and another, I am confoundedly hard up myself."

"All my sympathy!" said Floromond. "Amuse yourself well at the banquet." And he sprinkled a little more dust over the dying boulets in the grate, to prolong their warmth.

Outside, big snowflakes fell.

"The man who has never known poverty has never known his fellow-man," he mused; "I would have sworn for Bonvoisin. He has inspired me with an apophthegm, however—let us give Bonvoisin his due! And, to take a rosy view of things, turkeys are very indigestible birds, and, since I lack the fuel to cook it, I am spared the fatigue of going out to buy one for my mahogany to-morrow. Really there is much to be thankful for—the only embarrassment is to know where it is to be found. If I knew where enough tobacco for a cigarette was to be found, I would be thankful for that also. How the Mediterranean sparkles, and how hot the sun is, to be sure! We shall get freckles, she and I. Won't you spare me half of your beautiful sunshade, Frisonnette? Upon my word, I could grow light-headed, with a little encouragement; I could imagine that the steps I hear on the staircase now are hers! Fortunately, I have too much self-control to let fancy fool me."

Nevertheless, as he leant listening, his face was blanched.

The steps drew nearer.

"I know, of course, they go to the room on the other side; a moment more, and they will pass," he told himself, holding his breath.

But the steps halted, and a timid tap came.

"It is a child with a bill—the laundress's child. I know thoroughly it is the laundress's child—I do not hope!" he lied, tearing the door open.

And Frisonnette stood there, asking to come in.

"I have run away," she quavered. Her teeth were chattering, and her fashionable coat was caked with snow. "I should have come long ago—only, I was ashamed."

"You are real?" said Floromond, touching her. "You are not a dream?"

"Every day I have longed to be back with you, and at last I could bear no more. Do you think you might forgive me if you tried?"

"There is a tear on your cheek, and your dear little nose is pink with the cold, and the snow has taken your feathers out of curl," he answered, laughing and crying. "Let us pretend there are logs blazing up the chimney, and we will draw one chair to the hearth and tell each other how miserable we have been—or better than that, how happy we are!"

But still she clung to him, shivering and condemning herself.

"And so," she repeated, "I ran away. It is a habit I am acquiring. Finot is furious; he has dismissed me; I have no job and no money. I have come back with nothing, my Floromond, but the clothes I stand up in. And—and why do I find you with an empty coal-scuttle?"

"Ma foi!" he stammered, loath to deepen her distress, "as usual, that imbecile of a charbonnier has neglected to fulfil the order."

"He becomes intolerable," she faltered. "Is that why I notice that your tobacco-pouch is empty, too?"

"Oh, as for the tobacco-pouch," said the young man, "in this ferocious weather I have been reluctant to put on my hat."

"It is natural," murmured Frisonnette. But her eyes were frightened, and she investigated the cupboard. And when the cupboard was discovered to be as empty as the pouch and the coal-scuttle, she rushed to him in a panic.

"You are starving!" she moaned. "You have starved here, while I——Mon Dieu, I have not come home too soon!"

"Tut, tut," said Floromond; "are you trying to pose me for a hero of romance? I have been an idle vagabond, that is all. The cat is out of the bag, though—you have come home, ma Frisonnette adorÉe, and I have nothing for your welcome but my embrace!" And thinking of the want that lay before her, he broke down.

"I love you, I love you, Floromond," she wept.

"I love you," he sobbed, "I love you, Frisonnette."

Then, in the fading daylight, arose a plaintive cry—the wail of the itinerant wardrobe dealer: "Chand d'habits!"

"Chand d'habits!" she gasped, and darted to the window. "Chand d'habits!" she screamed—and stripped the smart costume from her and stood triumphant in her petticoat. Before the dealer's aged legs had toiled up half the stairs, she was back in the little old frock that had been cast aside. "Hook me, my Floromond!" And her eager arms were laden, and her frozen hands showered raiment on the floor: the peignoir, and tricot, and dresses—the pink, and the mauve, and the plaid. "We dine to-night!" she laughed. "Enter, Chand d'habits!"

---

"And, word of honour," observed Floromond, when the clocks of Paris had sounded twelve, and the pair sat digesting their beef-steak, and toasting their toes, and she rolled another cigarette for him, "word of honour, you have never looked more captivating than you do now—that frock becomes you marvellously. At the same time, the fine clothes I have been gobbling lie somewhat heavy on my sensibilities, particularly the fascinating ribbons of the peignoir. If only I had kept my nose to the grindstone! Ah, if only we had something better to expect than this hand-to-mouth existence! Alas, on New Year's Day, I cannot give you even a bunch of flowers."

And, at that moment, hurrying feet approached the house—young and excited voices were heard below. And what should it prove to be Well, what it should have proved to be was, that his "Ariadne" had, in some ingenious way, been purchased, for a large sum, without his knowledge, and that a contingent of the quarter had arrived to proclaim his affluence; but, as a matter of semi-sober fact, it was only a posse of exhilarated students, wishing everybody the compliments of the season, and playing Le Chemin de l'Amour on a trombone.

Still, there was a beautiful morning, as we know, when Floromond and Frisonnette had flowers on their own balcony, and three rooms, and chairs that they had actually bought and paid for—to say nothing of the baby. The Moral of which is, that there are more New Year's Days than one and it's never too late to hope. So let us all hope now!

THE END