CHAPTER XXI

THE SEQUEL TO M. HILAIRE'S HOLIDAY

That afternoon M. Hilaire was driving a large motor-car with the hood up, and few persons would have thought that he was not the owner of the splendid equipage. Obviously there was nothing about him to suggest the servant.

For that matter, M. Hilaire never looked like a servant, even in the days when he was employed as one by a certain Marquis, who treated him more as a confidential friend than as a secretary or valet.

M. Hilaire, on this particular day, had dressed himself with special care as a man of fashion. A check suit, with gaiters, a gray felt hat, and a blue butterfly bow with white spots, gave him an air of renewed youth as well as a very gentlemanly appearance. He was even wearing a flower in his buttonhole.

When he reached the railway station he pulled up and leaped from the car with a delightfully easy bearing. He gave a tip which enabled him to wait for the train from Paris on the platform from which the common herd was excluded.

The train from Paris was late as usual. M. Hilaire lit a cigar, and walked up and down with his hands behind his back. Whom was he waiting for? We may be certain that if he had been expecting Virginie he would not have put himself to so much expense in the matter of dress.

Notwithstanding that his visit, which he hoped would have been a peaceful one, had been attended by unforeseen complications, Hilaire had made up his mind to spend a few pleasant hours while he was on the Riviera. The time has come, perhaps, to show him in a light which is not an entirely favorable one. It is certain that Hilaire, who had been brought up in an austere school in so far as morals were concerned, and nurtured from his earliest childhood on the maxims of Chéri-Bibi, who not only hated a dissolute life but also any failure in respect to women--it is certain that M. Hilaire would have been incapable of committing, in this particular, an equivocal action; and Mademoiselle Zoé's ingenuousness was in little danger from him. For long he had treated her as a mischievous chit, which indeed she was. He did not stand on ceremony when he wanted to pass through her attic on his way over the roofs to some nocturnal frolic of his own, which was detrimental to no one, except perhaps Virginie; but for some time the saucy young gypsy had greatly amused him. She amused him all the more as Virginie wearied him all the more. Madame Hilaire abused the right which a wife possesses to make herself disagreeable, and if M. Hilaire found some amount of pleasure in the fantastic ideas and the humorous sallies of Mademoiselle Zoé, the fault lay to a great extent in Virginie and her bad temper. So much so, that M. Hilaire's heart, which was breaking away more and more every day from Virginie, was drawing nearer and nearer every day to Zoé, and he made no attempt to prevent it. So much so, that it was not Virginie whom he was expecting from Paris, but Mademoiselle Zoé herself. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, they both arrived by the same train!

At first he saw but one of them, for the very good reason that they did not travel together; and more particularly because Mademoiselle Zoé had boldly treated herself to a first class ticket, and was unaware that her dear mistress was behind her in a second class carriage.

While Hilaire had decked himself out for the occasion, Mademoiselle Zoé had not allowed herself to be outdone by him. She was sporting a pink frock, with hat to match, both of which achieved some success before she arrived at Nice.

Though she threw herself into M. Hilaire's arms the moment she saw him, it was not from over-forwardness nor lack of guilelessness, but because her heart was brimming over with thankfulness to him for having found her a situation as second lady's maid to the celebrated dancer, Nina Noha, and in such a beautiful neighborhood. It is needless to say that she had given Virginie "the chuck" with a glad heart.

All this was vouched for by hugs and kisses which made M. Hilaire and several passengers laugh, for they could not tear themselves away from the contemplation of the youthful traveler and her pink frock and hat.

It was at that splendid moment of triumph that a lady of opulent corsage loomed into sight from no one knew where and, waving her arms as though she were demented, set to work to break her umbrella alternately over the back of Zoé and the back of Hilaire.

Hilaire did not wait to hear more. He saw at a glance whence the blows came, and took himself off with an alacrity which passengers, who were jostling each other as they left the station, considered devoid of manners. He did not stop, however, until he was outside the station, where, under cover of his car, he could await events. As a measure of precaution he set the engine going.

To his amazement he did not have to wait long. Mademoiselle Zoé appeared, surrounded by a delighted mob. She held in her hand a few shreds of her hat, from which the feathers had departed, and her nose was bleeding.

Hilaire did not at first show his face, but when she passed close to him, searching on either side, obviously endeavoring to find him, and when he had made sure that Virginie was still in the station, he stepped forward quickly, flung her, rather than seated her, in the car, leaped to his seat, and drove off in a great style amid the shouts and cheering of an enthusiastic public.

They had not gone far outside the town when he turned round to ask Zoé, through the lowered window, what she had done with his wife.

"I gave her a pretty good dressing down," returned the charming Zoé. "We were both of us hauled off to the chief inspector's office. They took down our names and addresses. As my papers were in order they let me go, but as Madame had no papers at all they put her in the train which was starting for Paris."

"How was it that she had no papers?"

"Because I pinched them before I left. Look, here they are!" exclaimed softly the artful creature, opening her wrist-bag.

M. Hilaire betrayed such inordinate satisfaction and steered the car so wildly, that Mademoiselle Zoé implored him not to afford Madame Hilaire yet awhile the joy of becoming a widow. Thereupon M. Hilaire suggested that Zoé should come and sit on the seat beside him, a proposal which she straightway accepted.

"Madame certainly had an idea that I was leaving," said Zoé.

"Don't let's speak about her," returned M. Hilaire. "Let's hope that she'll have a pleasant journey. Don't let's bother about her."

M. Hilaire still bore the mark of Madame Hilaire's umbrella on his left cheek, and this injury, though it was ever so slight, did not incline him to pity her troubles overmuch.

"You can be easy now, my dear Zoé. You will enter the service of important people. The celebrated Dr. Ross is going to take you to the not less celebrated Nina Noha, who will know how to protect you better than I do, worse luck, from Madame Hilaire's unreasonable ways; and if, by chance, she takes it into her head to return to this part, where she is not wanted, those people will find means of getting rid of her for us."

Having uttered these reassuring words, M. Hilaire and Mademoiselle Zoé had nothing more to do but to admire the landscape. It was very beautiful. They were driving along the sea front on the road from Cannes.

The air was soft, though great clouds were beginning to rise in the sky, driven by the west wind, which usually portended some degree of atmospheric disturbance for the approaching night. But Hilaire and Zoé were intent only upon the passing hour. Hilaire's heaven at that moment was in his heart, so that the other heavens, with their gathering clouds, scarcely interested him. With Zoé at his side he forgot everything, even the order which his master, M. de Saynthine, had given him to be at the corner of the Rue Basse, in the old town, at five o'clock punctually with the car, with the hood up and the iron shutters.

An order like that was, of course, at once brought to the knowledge of M. Casimir, and M. Casimir himself gave M. Hilaire to understand that he must on no account fail to keep the appointment. M. Casimir, in fact, added: "It's quite likely that I myself shall want a car. It's very good of M. de Saynthine to lend me his!"

But these instructions, which at first aroused the Dodger's interest, were, at that moment, no more than an unsubstantial trifle in a lover's brain!

M. Hilaire's cheeks flushed under the look, at, once mischievous and grateful, which the handsome Zoé threw at him. He was conscious that she pressed closer to him, and his steering became slightly erratic.

"How well you drive, Monsieur Hilaire," she said. "You must teach me; will you?"

"Why, of course; whenever you like--the car doesn't belong to me!"

"How funny you are. Monsieur Hilaire. One never gets bored with you. Will you have a plum?"

"Do you mean to say you've brought some preserved fruit with you?"

"I filled my bag with them. Here, do you recognize your own plums? The real, the identical fruit as sold at Hilaire's up-to-date grocery stores. The old and the new world united!"

Mlle. Zoé opened her small valise and M. Hilaire saw that it contained several paper bags, bearing his name and address, full of preserved fruit. It was a delicate attention and softened M. Hilaire's heart beyond measure, so that his eyes grew moist, and he could not refrain from saying to his pretty companion:

"Look here, my dear Zoé, I must give you a kiss."

And they kissed each other as they devoured the fruit. At that juncture they heard a great clatter on their right. It was the train to Paris, steaming towards Marseilles, for at this spot the permanent way runs for several miles along the sea front.

But the train as it plunged forward made less noise than a certain lady of our acquaintance who was standing at the door of one of the carriages and began literally to bellow. The fury of her invective rose above the song of the wheels, and the frenzy of her gestures scared the man guarding the line.

"Virginie. . . . It's Virginie!"

"Madame. . . . It's Madame!"

It was indeed Madame, and she was in a mighty temper.

It must be stated that the speed of the car was equal to that of the train, so that for a while car and train traveled abreast, and the lady at the carriage door did not miss a single iota of what was happening in the car. She recognized M. Hilaire; She recognized Zoé. She recognized the plums!

In her indignation she leaned so far out of the window that certainly but for the intervention of kind-hearted persons in the carriage, who clung to her skirts, a grievous accident might have been feared.

"Be careful, Virginie, you will get yourself run over," shouted M. Hilaire, who, cherishing no ill-will against her, advised her to reserve herself for a less violent end.

"Would you like a plum, Madame?" asked Mdlle. Zoé, holding out a bag on which the poor lady could discern quite plainly the name and superscription of the "up-to-date grocery stores."

"Ladies . . . Gentlemen . . . That's my husband. . . . My husband with my shop-girl! . . . They're gallows-birds!"

This last imputation greatly ruffled M. Hilaire, who slackened his pace, while Mdlle. Zoé rapped out as the train sped past them:

"Enjoy yourself, old dear!"

"Now we can go back to Nice," said Hilaire. "She's sure not to be there! But when she does return I shall get it hot."

The prospect of Madame Hilaire's reappearance damped his enthusiasm, and he suddenly fell into a state of despondency. He remembered in his dejection the explicit injunctions which both M. de Saynthine and Chéri-Bibi had given hem. He swore like a trooper and put on full speed.

"You look quite upset all of a sudden," said Zoé. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing. I'm late."

"I say, don't smash us to pieces. When do I go to my place?"

"To-morrow."

"Where are you taking me?"

"To the hotel where I've booked a room for you."

He could not very well confess to Zoé that having himself engaged a room in the town he had at first taken one for her in his own hotel, but that by chance Chéri-Bibi heard of it, and burst into a violent fit of anger at the thought that M. Hilaire should be guilty of an act contrary to the proprieties. M. Hilaire had in vain indignantly protested that his liking for his shop-assistant was an entirely platonic one, and that up to that time they had but exchanged plums, not kisses. "One is more than enough," replied Chéri-Bibi with authority, rolling his big eyes. "'Sufficient for the day' . . ."

"Is it in your hotel?" asked Zoé.

"No," returned M. Hilaire, reddening.