"Well, Maman?"
"If any gentleman should ever love you and ask you to marry,--not knowing, you know,--promise me you will not tell him you are not white."
"It can never be," said "t.i.te Poulette.
"But if it should," said Madame John pleadingly.
"And break the law?" asked "t.i.te Poulette, impatiently.
"But the law is unjust," said the mother.
"But it is the law!"
"But you will not, dearie, will you?"
"I would surely tell him!" said the daughter.
When Zalli, for some cause, went next morning to the window, she started.
""t.i.te Poulette!"--she called softly without moving. The daughter came.
The young man, whose idea of propriety had actuated him to this display, was sitting in the dormer window, reading. Mother and daughter bent a steady gaze at each other. It meant in French, "If he saw us last night!"--
"Ah! dear," said the mother, her face beaming with fun--
"What can it be, Maman?"
"He speaks--oh! ha, ha!--he speaks--such miserable French!"
It came to pa.s.s one morning at early dawn that Zalli and "t.i.te Poulette, going to ma.s.s, pa.s.sed a cafe, just as--who should be coming out but Monsieur, the manager of the _Salle de Conde_. He had not yet gone to bed. Monsieur was astonished. He had a Frenchman"s eye for the beautiful, and certainly there the beautiful was. He had heard of Madame John"s daughter, and had hoped once to see her, but did not but could this be she?
They disappeared within the cathedral. A sudden pang of piety moved him; he followed. "t.i.te Poulette was already kneeling in the aisle. Zalli, still in the vestibule, was just taking her hand from the font of holy-water.
"Madame John," whispered the manager.
She courtesied.
"Madame John, that young lady--is she your daughter?"
"She--she--is my daughter," said Zalli, with somewhat of alarm in her face, which the manager misinterpreted.
"I think not, Madame John." He shook his head, smiling as one too wise to be fooled.
"Yes, Monsieur, she is my daughter."
"O no, Madame John, it is only make-believe, I think."
"I swear she is, Monsieur de la Rue."
"Is that possible?" pretending to waver, but convinced in his heart of hearts, by Zalli"s alarm, that she was lying. "But how? Why does she not come to our ball-room with you?"
Zalli, trying to get away from him, shrugged and smiled. "Each to his taste, Monsieur; it pleases her not."
She was escaping, but he followed one step more. "I shall come to see you, Madame John."
She whirled and attacked him with her eyes. "Monsieur must not give himself the trouble!" she said, the eyes at the same time adding, "Dare to come!" She turned again, and knelt to her devotions. The manager dipped in the font, crossed himself, and departed.
Several weeks went by, and M. de la Rue had not accepted the fierce challenge of Madame John"s eyes. One or two Sunday nights she had succeeded in avoiding him, though fulfilling her engagement in the _Salle_; but by and by pay-day,--a Sat.u.r.day,--came round, and though the pay was ready, she was loath to go up to Monsieur"s little office.
It was an afternoon in May. Madame John came to her own room, and, with a sigh, sank into a chair. Her eyes were wet.
"Did you go to his office, dear mother?" asked "t.i.te Poulette.
"I could not," she answered, dropping her face in her hands.
"Maman, he has seen me at the window!"
"While I was gone?" cried the mother.
"He pa.s.sed on the other side of the street. He looked up purposely, and saw me." The speaker"s cheeks were burning red.
Zalli wrung her hands.
"It is nothing, mother; do not go near him."
"But the pay, my child."
"The pay matters not."
"But he will bring it here; he wants the chance."
That was the trouble, sure enough.
About this time Kristian Koppig lost his position in the German importing house where, he had fondly told his mother, he was indispensable.
"Summer was coming on," the senior said, "and you see our young men are almost idle. Yes, our engagement _was_ for a year, but ah--we could not foresee"--etc., etc., "besides" (attempting a parting flattery), "your father is a rich gentleman, and you can afford to take the summer easy.
If we can ever be of any service to you," etc., etc.
So the young Dutchman spent the afternoons at his dormer window reading and glancing down at the little cas.e.m.e.nt opposite, where a small, rude shelf had lately been put out, holding a row of cigar-boxes with wretched little botanical specimens in them trying to die. "t.i.te Poulette was their gardener; and it was odd to see,--dry weather or wet,--how many waterings per day those plants could take. She never looked up from her task; but I know she performed it with that unacknowledged pleasure which all girls love and deny, that of being looked upon by n.o.ble eyes.
On this peculiar Sat.u.r.day afternoon in May, Kristian Koppig had been witness of the distressful scene over the way. It occurred to "t.i.te Poulette that such might be the case, and she stepped to the cas.e.m.e.nt to shut it. As she did so, the marvellous delicacy of Kristian Koppig moved him to draw in one of his shutters. Both young heads came out at one moment, while at the same instant--
"Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap!" clanked the knocker on the wicket. The black eyes of the maiden and the blue over the way, from looking into each other for the first time in life, glanced down to the arched doorway upon Monsieur the manager. Then the black eyes disappeared within, and Kristian Koppig thought again, and re-opening his shutter, stood up at the window prepared to become a bold spectator of what might follow.
But for a moment nothing followed.
"Trouble over there," thought the rosy Dutchman, and waited. The manager waited too, rubbing his hat and brushing his clothes with the tips of his kidded fingers.
"They do not wish to see him," slowly concluded the spectator.