Part 47

"I can tell you of many odd things," said Aristide. "I can tell you how flowers sing and what colour there is in the notes of birds. And how a cornfield laughs, and how the face of a woman who loves can outdazzle the sun. Chère madame," he went on, after a pause, touching her little plump hand, "you have been hungering for beauty and thirsting for sympathy all your life. Isn't that so?"

She nodded.

"You have always been misunderstood."

A tear fell. Our rascal saw the glistening drop with peculiar satisfaction. Poor Mrs. Ducksmith! It was a child's game. Enfin, what woman could resist him? He had, however, one transitory qualm of conscience, for, with all his vagaries, Aristide was a kindly and honest man. Was it right to disturb those placid depths? Was it right to fill this woman with romantic aspirations that could never be gratified? He himself had not the slightest intention of playing Lothario and of wrecking the peace of the Ducksmith household. The realization of the saint-like purity of his aims reassured him. When he wanted to make love to a woman, pour tout de bon, it would not be to Mrs. Ducksmith.

"Bah!" said he to himself. "I am doing a noble and disinterested act. I am restoring sight to the blind. I am giving life to one in a state of suspended animation. Tron de l'Air! I am playing the part of a soul-reviver! And, parbleu! it isn't Jean or Jacques that can do that. It takes an Aristide Pujol!"

So, having persuaded himself, in his Southern way, that he was executing an almost divine mission, he continued, with a zest now sharpened by an approving conscience, to revive Mrs. Ducksmith's soul.

The poor lady, who had suffered the blighting influence of Mr. Ducksmith for twenty years with never a ray of counteracting warmth from the outside, expanded like a flower to the sun under the soul-reviving process. Day by day she exhibited some fresh timid coquetry in dress and manner. Gradually she began to respond to Aristide's suggestions of beauty in natural scenery and exquisite building. On the ramparts of Angoulême, daintiest of towns in France, she gazed at the smiling valleys of the Charente and the Son stretching away below, and of her own accord touched his arm lightly and said: "How beautiful!" She appealed to her husband.

"Umph!" said he.

Once more (it had become a habit) she exchanged glances with Aristide. He drew her a little farther along, under pretext of pointing out the dreamy sweep of the Charente.

"If he appreciates nothing at all, why on earth does he travel?"

Her eyelids fluttered upwards for a fraction of a second.

"It's his mania," she said. "He can never rest at home. He must always be going on--on."

"How can you endure it?" he asked.

She sighed. "It is better now that you can teach me how to look at things."

"Good!" thought Aristide. "When I leave them she can teach him to look at things and revive his soul. Truly I deserve a halo."

As Mr. Ducksmith appeared to be entirely unperceptive of his wife's spiritual expansion, Aristide grew bolder in his apostolate. He complimented Mrs. Ducksmith to his face. He presented her daily with flowers. He scarcely waited for the heavy man's back to be turned to make love to her. If she did not believe that she was the most beautiful, the most ravishing, the most delicate-souled woman in the world, it was through no fault of Aristide. Mr. Ducksmith went his pompous, unseeing way. At every stopping-place stacks of English daily papers awaited him. Sometimes, while Aristide was showing them the sights of a town--to which, by the way, he insisted on being conducted--he would extract a newspaper from his pocket and read with dull and dogged stupidity. Once Aristide caught him reading the advertisements for cooks and housemaids. In these circumstances Mrs. Ducksmith spiritually expanded at an alarming rate; and, correspondingly, dwindled the progress of Mr. Ducksmith's sock.

They arrived at Perigueux, in Perigord, land of truffles, one morning, in time for lunch. Towards the end of the meal the maître d'hôtel helped them to great slabs of pâté de foie gras, made in the house--most of the hotel-keepers in Perigord make pâté de foie gras, both for home consumption and for exportation--and waited expectant of their appreciation. He was not disappointed. Mr. Ducksmith, after a hesitating glance at the first mouthful, swallowed it, greedily devoured his slab, and, after pointing to his empty plate, said, solemnly:--

"Plou."

Like Oliver, he asked for more.

"Tiens!" thought Aristide, astounded. "Is he, too, developing a soul?"

But, alas! there were no signs of it when they went their dreary round of the town in the usual ramshackle open cab. The cathedral of Saint-Front, extolled by Aristide and restored by Abadie--a terrible fellow who has capped with tops of pepper-castors every pre-Gothic building in France--gave him no thrill; nor did the picturesque, tumble-down ancient buildings on the banks of the Dordogne, nor the delicate Renaissance façades in the cool, narrow Rue du Lys.

"We will now go back to the hotel," said Mr. Ducksmith.

"But have we seen it all?" asked his wife.

"By no means," said Aristide.

"We will go back to the hotel," repeated her husband, in his expressionless tones. "I have seen enough of Perigueux."

This was final. They drove back to the hotel. Mr. Ducksmith, without a word, went straight into the salon, leaving Aristide and his wife standing in the vestibule.

"And you, madame," said Aristide; "are you going to sacrifice the glory of God's sunshine to the manufacture of woollen socks?"

She smiled--she had caught the trick at last--and said, in happy submission: "What would you have me do?"