Part 11

"Now, listen to me," I cried, backing in a panic. "Put so much as a finger on us and you are ruined. Not only will I have you discharged from the Force, I will have you hounded out of any employment that you find to the end of your days. It is I who say it! You have no excuse: we bear no resemblance whatever to Thibaudin and Hazard. If you were of Paris you would know as much!"

Again he faltered. Again he saw distinction within his grasp. The workings of a dull intelligence, a fool's passion for promotion, supplied a fascinating study, even in my fear. "Hollow cheeks, small grey moustache, slight stoop?" he recited, eyeing me. His sheep's gaze travelled to Beauregard. "Age forty, bald at crown. Fat."

"Is he the only fat man in France, fool? We can call all Paris to prove who we are!"

"Monsieur will have his opportunity to prove it elsewhere," he returned stubbornly. But the "monsieur" hinted that I was impressing him against his will.

Beauregard began to collect his wits. "If we are compelled to prove it elsewhere, it will be the end of _you_!" he raged. "Better be convinced in time, I warn you. Hazard _is_ fat, yes; _I_ am, perhaps, a little plump."

"What do you show me?" mumbled the fellow. "I see the card of monsieur Panage. That does not demonstrate that monsieur Panage is present." Complacence was in his gesture, he seemed vain of the brilliance of his reasoning. "All is said. I have no time for discussions."

"Stop!" I cried, inspired. "What if we produce a resident of this very village, to say who I am?"

"Mon Dieu! the man you met," roared Beauregard. "Saved!"

"There is no such person--we have made our inquiries."

"There is a gentleman well known, who has lived here with his daughter since--I don't know how long!"

"Give me his name."

"His name?" I said. "His name is----" I could not recall the name!--it had had no interest for me. I could remember saying, hypocritically, "I shall bear your name in mind "; but what it was I had no idea. I stood dazed. "His name----It escapes me for the moment."

"Enough. The pretence is idle."

"Morbleu!" thundered Beauregard. "Think, Panage, think!"

"I am trying; but I paid no heed to it."

Heavens! what a revenge for the mummer--the name that had fallen on careless ears was now my only chance of rescue. I thrashed my brains for it, sweating with funk.

"The name----It evades me because I have met him only once in my life."

"Or not so often! I am not to be duped."

"Let me think; don't speak for a minute."

"Farceur!"

"His name----I--I nearly had it. Wait."

"I have waited too long. Come! the pair of you."

"His name--his name----" I sought it frantically. "His name is--_Paul Manesse!_"

I mopped my neck. Our persecutor made a note.

"Where is he to be found?"

"How should I know that? It is not difficult for you to ascertain; doubtless any villager could direct you to him. Now, mark you, I have supplied the name of a resident in a position to correct your monstrous blunder! I advise you to bring him to identify me before the matter becomes more serious for you still. If you put us to public ignominy, apologies will not satisfy me when you discover your mistake. Here is your last chance to extricate yourself."

He ruminated. "Enfin, I will send one of my men to inquire for him," he said grudgingly. "If it turns out that this 'monsieur Manesse' is unknown, I warn you that you will suffer for your game."

The room was about forty feet from the ground--I saw him attentively considering whether, in his absence, we were likely to walk out of the window. He marched into the corridor and gave a whistle. I heard two voices before he came in again.

Uninvited, he sat, clasping his knees. None of us spoke any more. The lamp having still made no appearance, I lit the candles. I do not forget that long half-hour in Les Myosotis. The yokel himself grew restless at last--he rose and went into the corridor again.

"Hark," exclaimed Beauregard suddenly, "the man has come back. Can you hear Manesse? Listen."

"I cannot distinguish," I murmured, straining my ears to the door.

Some minutes passed. To our dismay, our oppressor re-entered alone. Perplexity darkened his brow. He hesitated before he broke the suspensive hush.

"Monsieur Manesse agrees that this afternoon he met monsieur Panage," he announced. "_But_"--he raised a forensic forefinger--"that does not establish that either of _you_ is monsieur Panage. Monsieur Manesse is occupied in telling a fairy tale to his little daughter and cannot spare the time to come here to identify you. Enfin, you will accompany me to the commissaire de police, and you will obtain the evidence in due course."

"Sacré tonnerre!" I screamed. It was the last straw. That strolling player declined to "spare the time," that mountebank neglected Me!

I saw crimson. I paced the room, raving. "What did he say?" I spluttered. "What were the ruffian's words?"

"My man reports that the gentleman replied, 'Monsieur Panage must have had immense difficulty in recollecting my name. He would not stir an inch to save my life--why should _I_ take a walk for _him_?'"

I sat down. I felt dizzy. I feared I was going to be extremely ill. The man himself seemed moved by my collapse--or increasingly uncertain of his position. He said, "Perhaps a note might be effectual? Alors, if monsieur wishes to write, I will wait."

"Give me your fountain-pen, Beauregard."

"But"--again the forefinger was uplifted--"there must be no secret instructions. I must be satisfied there is no private meaning in the note."

"Good heavens! What am I permitted to say?"

He pondered. "'To monsieur Paul Manesse: Monsieur----' Has monsieur written 'Monsieur'?"

"Yes, yes; go on!"

"'I am now convinced that you can act. I hereby engage you, at the trifling salary of two hundred and fifty francs a week, for prominent parts in my next three productions at the Théâtre Suprême.'"

The silence was sensational.

"Who the devil are you?" I stuttered, when I found my voice.

"Paul Manesse, monsieur," he told me--"your new comedian, if you sign."

I signed. You have heard how we boomed _Omphale_ and I found a star! That jolly little Manesse girl has a rich papa to-day.

X

PILAR NARANJO

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?"