"You find that funny?" I asked, my dignity somewhat ruffled. "I suppose I am as pretty a little lover as anyone else."
"But you and me, Asticot, it is so droll."
"If you put it that way," I admitted, "it is. But the concierge doesn"t think it possible that you are not my _maitresse_. Why otherwise should you be running in and out of my room, as if it belonged to you?"
"You will be bringing a _maitresse_ of your own here soon, and then you won"t want Blanquette any longer."
I dismissed the idea as one too remote for contemplation. At the same time I reflected that I kissed a pretty model at Janot"s when we met alone on the stairs. I wondered whether the diabolical perspicacity of women had seen traces of the kiss on my lips.
"I disturb you?" she asked drawing up my other wooden chair to the deal table and sitting down.
"Why, no. I can work while you talk."
She put her elbow on a couple of pickled gherkins that remained casually on the table after a perambulatory meal.
"Oh, how dirty men are! You are worse than the Master. Oh la! la! and he puts his boots and his dirty plates together on his bed! It is time that you did have a _maitresse_ to keep the place in order."
"I believe you really do want to come here in that capacity," I said laughingly.
She flushed at the jest and drew herself up. "You have no right to say that, Asticot. I would sooner be the Master"s servant than the mistress or even the wife of any man living. He is everything to me, my little Asticot, everything, do you hear? although he loves me just as he loves you and Narcisse. _Il ne faut pas te moquer de moi._ You must not laugh at me. It hurts me."
It was only then, for the first time, that I realised in Blanquette a grown woman. Hitherto I had regarded her merely as a female waif picked up like the dog and myself under Paragot"s vagabond arm and attached to him by ties of grat.i.tude. Now, lo and behold! she was a woman talking of deep things with a treacherous throb in her voice.
I reached across the table and took one of her coa.r.s.e hands.
"_Mais tu l"aimes donc, ma pauvre Blanquette!_" I exclaimed in sympathy and consternation.
She looked down and nodded. I did not know what to say. A tear fell on my hand. I knew still less. Then crying out she was very unhappy, she began to sob.
"He does not want me--even to pa.s.s the time. It has never entered his head. I am too ugly. I do not demand that he should love me. It would be asking for the moon."
"But he does love you, like a father," I said, in vain consolation. "I love him like a son and you should love him like a daughter."
She did not even condescend to notice this counsel of perfection. She was too ugly. She was built like a hayrick. The Master had never cast his eyes on her, as doubtless he would have done, being a man, had she any of the qualities of allurement. She suffered, poor Blanquette, from the _spretae injuria formae_ with reason even more solid than the forsaken Dido. She was humble, she sobbed; she did not demand a bit of love bigger than that--and she clicked her finger nail. With that she would be proud and happy.
"If the master were as gay as he used to be, I should not mind," she said, lifting a grotesquely stained face. "But when he goes drinking, drinking so as to drown his love for another woman, _c"est plus fort que moi_. It is more than I can bear."
"Which other woman?"
"You know very well. That beautiful lady. She has come more than once to fetch him away. She is a wicked woman, for she does not love him; she even detests him; one can see that. I should like to kill her," cried Blanquette.
The idea of anyone wanting to kill Joanna was so novel that I stared at her speechless. It took some time for my wits to accommodate themselves to the point of view.
"If I were a man I would not drink myself to death for the sake of a woman who treated me so," she remarked, recovering her composure.
"Is it as bad as that?" I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. Men must drink. It is their nature. But there should be limits. One ought to be reasonable, even a man. Did I not think so? In her matter of fact way she gave me details of Paragot"s habits. The one morning absinthe had grown to two or three. There was brandy too in his bedroom.
"And it eats such a deal of money, my little Asticot," she remarked.
After which, to relieve her feelings, she washed up my dirty plates, and discoursed on the economics of catering.
I walked with her through the two or three streets that separated me from the Rue des Saladiers, and went upstairs with her to see whether Paragot had returned. It was past midnight. There was no Paragot. I went to the Cafe Delphine profoundly depressed by Blanquette"s story. Here was Blanquette eating her heart out for Paragot, who was killing his soul for Joanna, who was miserably unhappy on account of her husband, who was suffering some penalty for his scaly-headed vulturedom. It was a kind of House-that-Jack-built tale of misery, of which I seemed to be the foundation.
Save for Paragot the cafe was empty. He was asleep in his usual corner, breathing stertorously, his head against the wall. Madame Boin on her throne was busy over accounts. Hercule dozed at a table by the door, his napkin in the crook of his arm. He nodded towards Paragot as I entered and made a helpless gesture. I looked at the huddled figure against the wall and wondered how the deuce I was to take him home. I had no money to pay for a cab. I tried in vain to rouse him.
"Monsieur had better let him stay here," said Hercule. "It won"t be the first time." My heart grew even heavier than it was before. No wonder poor Blanquette was dismayed.
"He will catch his death of cold when the morning comes," said I, for the night was fresh and three years of warm lying had softened the Paragot of vagrant days.
"One must die sooner or later," moralised Hercule inhumanly.
I shook my master again. He grunted. I shook him more violently. To my relief he opened his eyes, smiled at me and waved a limp salutation.
"The Palace of Dipsomania," he murmured.
"No, Master," said I. "This is the Cafe Delphine and you live in the Rue des Saladiers."
"It is a nuisance to live anywhere. I was born to be a bird--to roost on trees." I had considerable difficulty in disentangling the words from his thick speech. He shut his eyes--then opened them again.
"How does a drunken owl stay on his twig?"
As I felt no interest in the domestic habits of dissolute owls, I set about getting him home. I took his green hat from the peg and put it on his head, and with Hercule"s help drew away the table and set him on his feet.
"A man like that! It goes to my heart," said Madame Boin in a low voice.
I felt unreasonably angry that any one, save myself or perhaps Blanquette, should pity my beloved master. I did not answer, whereby I am afraid I was rude to the good Madame Boin. Paragot lurched forward and would have fallen had not Hercule caught and steadied him.
"Broken ankle," explained Paragot.
"You must try to walk, Master," I urged anxiously. How was I going to get him to the Rue des Saladiers? His arm round my neck weighed cruelly on my frail body.
"Put best foot forward," he murmured making a step and pausing. "That is very easy; but the devil of it is when time comes for worst foot."
"Try it, for goodness sake," said I.
He tried it with a silly laugh. Then the swing door of the cafe opened and Joanna with her sweet frightened face appeared on the threshold.
CHAPTER XIII
THE sight of Joanna froze Paragot into momentary sobriety. He stood rigid for a few seconds and then swayed into a chair by one of the tables and sat with his head in his hands. I went up to Joanna.
"He can"t come to-night, Madame."