Part 43

The next evening Aristide, coming back from his day's work at the Hôtel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse, was confronted in the shop by Mme. Bidoux, hands on broad hips.

"Tiens, mon petit," she said, without preliminary greeting. "You are an angel. I knew it. But that a man's an angel is no reason for his being an imbecile. Read this."

She plucked a paper from her apron pocket and thrust it into his hand. He read it, and blinked in amazement.

"Where did you get this, Mère Bidoux?"

"Where I got many more. In your drawer. The letters you were saving for this infamous scoundrel. I wanted to know what she had written to him."

"Mère Bidoux!" cried Aristide. "Those letters were sacred!"

"Bah!" said Mme. Bidoux, unabashed. "There is nothing sacred to a sapper or an old grandmother who loves an imbecile. I have read the letters, et voilà, et voilà, et voilà!" And she emptied her pockets of all the letters, minus the envelopes, that Fleurette had written.

And, after one swift glance at the first letter, Aristide had no compunction in reading. They were all addressed to himself.

They were very short, ill-written in a poor little uncultivated hand. But they all contained one message, that of her love for Aristide. Whatever illusions she may have had concerning Batterby had soon vanished. She knew, with the unerring instinct of woman, that he had betrayed and deserted her. Aristide's pious fraud had never deceived her for a second. Too gentle, too timid to let him know what was in her heart, she had written the secret patiently week after week, hoping every time that curiosity, or pity, or something--she knew not what--would induce him to open the idle letter, and wondering in her simple peasant's soul at the delicacy that caused him to refrain. Once she had boldly given him the envelope unclosed.

"She died for want of love, parbleu," said Aristide, "and there was mine quivering in my heart and trembling on my lips all the time.... She had des yeux de pervenche. Ah! nom d'un chien! It is only with me that Providence plays such tricks."

He walked to the window and looked out into the grey street. Presently I heard him murmuring the words of the old French song:--

Elle est morte en février; Pauvre Colinette!

VII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MIRACLE

You have seen how Aristide, by attaching himself to the Hôtel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse as a kind of glorified courier, had founded the Agence Pujol. As he, personally, was the Agence, and the Agence was he, it happened that when he was not in attendance at the hotel, the Agence faded into space, and when he made his appearance in the vestibule and hung up his placard by the bureau, the Agence at once burst again into the splendour of existence. Apparently the fitful career of the Agence Pujol lasted some years. Whenever a chance of more remunerative employment turned up, Aristide took it and dissolved the Agence. Whenever outrageous fortune chivied him with slings and arrows penniless to Paris, there was always the Agence waiting to be resuscitated.

It was during one of these periodic flourishings of the Agence Pujol that Aristide met the Ducksmiths.

Business was slack, few guests were at the hotel, and of those few none desired to be personally conducted to the Louvre or Notre Dame or the monument in the Place de la Bastille. They mostly wore the placid expression of folks engaged in business affairs instead of the worried look of pleasure-seekers.

"My good Bocardon," said Aristide, lounging by the bureau and addressing his friend the manager, "this is becoming desperate. In another minute I shall take you out by main force and show you the Pont Neuf."

At that moment the door of the stuffy salon opened, and a travelling Briton, whom Aristide had not seen before, advanced to the bureau and inquired his way to the Madeleine. Aristide turned on him like a flash.

"Sir," said he, extracting documents from his pockets with lightning rapidity, "nothing would give me greater pleasure than to conduct you thither. My card. My tariff. My advertisement." He pointed to the placard. "I am the managing director of the Agence Pujol, under the special patronage of this hotel. I undertake all travelling arrangements, from the Moulin Rouge to the Pyramids, and, as you see, my charges are moderate."

The Briton, holding the documents in a pudgy hand, looked at the swift-gestured director with portentous solemnity. Then, with equal solemnity, he looked at Bocardon.

"Monsieur Ducksmith," said the latter, "you can repose every confidence in Monsieur Aristide Pujol."

"Umph!" said Mr. Ducksmith.

After another solemn inspection of Aristide, he stuck a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on his fleshy nose and perused the documents. He was a fat, heavy man of about fifty years of age, and his scanty hair was turning grey. His puffy cheeks hung jowl-like, giving him the appearance of some odd dog--a similarity greatly intensified by the eye-sockets, the lower lids of which were dragged down in the middle, showing the red like a bloodhound's; but here the similarity ended, for the man's eyes, dull and blue, had the unspeculative fixity of a rabbit's. His mouth, small and weak, dribbled away at the corners into the jowls which, in their turn, melted into two or three chins. He was decently dressed in grey tweeds, and wore a diamond ring on his little finger.

"Umph!" said he, at last; and went back to the salon.

As soon as the door closed behind him Aristide sprang into an attitude of indignation.

"Did you ever see such a bear! If I ever saw a bigger one I would eat him without salt or pepper. Mais nom d'un chien, such people ought to be made into sausages!"

"Flègme britannique!" laughed Bocardon.