Part 4

He was not alone. Walking arm in arm with him was a stout, elderly woman of swarthy complexion and forbidding aspect. She was attired in a peasant's or small shopkeeper's rusty Sunday black and an old-fashioned black bonnet prodigiously adorned with black plumes and black roses. Beneath this bonnet her hair was tightly drawn up from her forehead; heavy eyebrows overhung a pair of small, crafty eyes, and a tuft of hair grew on the corner of a prognathous jaw. She might have been about seven-and-forty.

Aristide Pujol, unlinking himself from this unattractive female, advanced and saluted me with considerable deference.

"Monseigneur----" said he.

As I am neither a duke nor an archbishop, but a humble member of the lower automobiling classes, the high-flown title startled me.

"Monseigneur, will you permit me," said he, in French, "to present to you Mme. Gougasse? Madame is the patronne of the Café de l'Univers, at Carcassonne, which doubtless you have frequented, and she is going to do me the honour of marrying me to-morrow."

The unexpectedness of the announcement took my breath away.

"Good heavens!" said I, in a whisper.

Anyone less congruous as the bride-elect of the debonair Aristide Pujol it was impossible to imagine. However, it was none of my business. I raised my hat politely to the lady.

"Madame, I offer you my sincere felicitations. As an entertaining husband I am sure you will find M. Aristide Pujol without a rival."

"Je vous remercie, monseigneur," she replied, in what was obviously her best company manner. "And if ever you will deign to come again to the Café de l'Univers at Carcassonne we will esteem it a great honour."

"And so you're going to get married to-morrow?" I remarked, by way of saying something. To congratulate Aristide Pujol on his choice lay beyond my power of hypocrisy.

"To-morrow," said he, "my dear Amélie will make me the happiest of men."

"We start for Carcassonne by the three-thirty train," said Mme. Gougasse, pulling a great silver watch from some fold of her person.

"Then there is time," said I, pointing to a little weather-beaten café in the square, "to drink a glass to your happiness."

"Bien volontiers," said the lady.

"Pardon, chère amie," Aristide interposed, quickly. "Unless monseigneur and I start at once for Montpellier, I shall not have time to transact my little affairs before your train arrives there."

Parenthetically, I must remark that all trains going from Aigues-Mortes to Carcassonne must stop at Montpellier.

"That's true," she agreed, in a hesitating manner. "But----"

"But, idol of my heart, though I am overcome with grief at the idea of leaving you for two little hours, it is a question of four thousand francs. Four thousand francs are not picked up every day in the street. It's a lot of money."

Mme. Gougasse's little eyes glittered.

"Bien sûr. And it's quite settled?"

"Absolutely."

"And it will be all for me?"

"Half," said Aristide.

"You promised all to me for the redecoration of the ceiling of the café."

"Three thousand will be sufficient, dear angel. What? I know these contractors and decorators. The more you pay them, the more abominable will they make the ceiling. Leave it to me. I, Aristide, will guarantee you a ceiling like that of the Sistine Chapel for two thousand francs."

She smiled and bridled, so as to appear perfectly well-bred in my presence. The act of smiling caused the tuft of hair on her jaw to twitch horribly. A cold shiver ran down my back.

"Don't you think, monseigneur," she asked, archly, "that M. Pujol should give me the four thousand francs as a wedding-present?"