"I went first to the Rue des Saladiers. The servant told me I should find him at the Cafe Delphine."
I left her outside, and re-entering, met him in the middle of the Cafe, grasping his green hat in one hand and the pipe with the porcelain bowl in the other. All eyes were turned anxiously towards us.
"She has come for you, Master," I whispered. "She needs you. Come."
"What does she want with me? It was all over and done with thirteen years ago." His voice shook.
"She is waiting," said I.
I drew him to the door and he obeyed me with strange docility. He drew a deep breath as soon as we emerged on to the wind-swept pavement.
"Gaston."
"Yes," said he.
They remained looking at each other for several seconds, agitated, neither able to speak.
"You were very cruel to me long ago," she said at last.
My Master remained silent; the wooden stem of the pipe snapped between his fingers and the porcelain bowl fell with a crash to the pavement.
"Very cruel, Gaston. But you can make a little reparation now, if you like."
"I repair my cruelty to you?" He laughed as men laugh in great pain.
"Very well. It will be a fitting end to a topsy-turvy farce. What can I do for Madame la Comtesse?"
"My husband is ill. Come to him. My carriage is here. Oh, put on your hat and don"t stand there French fas.h.i.+on, bareheaded. We are English."
"We are what you will," said my Master putting on his hat. "At present however I am mystified by your lighting on me in the dustbin of Paris.
You must have done much sifting."
"I will tell you as we drive," she said.
I walked with them across the pavement and opened the carriage door.
"Goodnight, Mr. Asticot," said Madame la Comtesse holding out her hand.
Paragot looked from me to her, shrugged his shoulders and followed her into the carriage. My master had many English attributes, but in the shrug, the pantomime of Kismet, he was exclusively French.
CHAPTER XII
"_Mais dis donc, Asticot_," said Blanquette holding a half egg-sh.e.l.l in each hand while the yolk and white fell into the bowl, "who was the lady that came last night and wanted to see the Master?"
"You had better ask him," said I.
"I have done so, but he will not tell me."
"What did he say?"
"He told me to ask the serpent. I don"t know what he meant," said Blanquette.
I explained the allusion to the curiosity of Eve.
"But," objected the literal Blanquette, "there is no serpent in the Rue des Saladiers--unless it is you."
"You have beaten those eggs enough," I remarked.
"You can teach me many things, but how to make omelettes--ah no!"
"All right," said I, "when your inordinate curiosity has spoiled the thing, don"t blame me."
"She is very pretty," said Blanquette.
"Pretty? She is entirely adorable."
Blanquette sighed. "She must have a great many lovers."
"Blanquette!" cried I scandalised, "she is married."
"Naturally. If she weren"t she could not have lovers. I wish I were only half as beautiful."
The lump of b.u.t.ter cast into the frying-pan sizzled, and Blanquette sighed again. I must explain that I had come, as I often did, to share Paragot"s midday meal, but as he was still abed, Blanquette had enticed me into her tiny kitchen. The omelette being for my sole consumption I may be pardoned for my interest in its concoction.
"So that you could be married and have lovers?" I asked in a superior way.
"Too many lovers make life unhappy," she replied sagely. "If I were pretty I should only want one--one to love me for myself."
"And for what are you loved now?"
"For my omelettes," she said with a deft turn of the frying-pan.
"Blanquette," said I, "_je t"adore_."
She laughed with an "_es-tu bete!_" and ministered to my wants as I sat down to my meal at a corner of the kitchen table. She loved this. Great as was her pride in the speckless and orderly salon, she never felt at her ease there. In the kitchen she was herself, at home, and could do the honours as hostess.
"Do you think the beautiful lady is in love with the Master?"
"You have been reading the _feuilletons_ of the _Pet.i.t Journal_ and your head is full of sentimental nonsense," I cried.
"It is not nonsense for a woman to love the Master."
"Oho!" I exclaimed teasingly, "perhaps you are in love with him too."
She turned her back on me and began to clean a spotless ca.s.serole.