The only other occupant of the first-cla.s.s compartment was an elderly Englishwoman of sour aspect. Aristide, his head full of Zette and Bondon, scarcely noticed her. The train started and sped through the sunny land of vine and olive.
They had almost reached Tarascon when a sudden thought hit him between the eyes, like the blow of a fist. He gasped for a moment, then he burst into shrieks of laughter, kicking his legs up and down and waving his arms in maniacal mirth. After that he rose and danced. The sour-faced Englishwoman, in mortal terror, fled into the corridor. She must have reported Aristide"s behaviour to the guard, for in a minute or two that official appeared at the doorway.
"_Qu"est-ce qu"il y a?_"
Aristide paused in his demonstrations of merriment. "Monsieur," said he, "I have just discovered what I am going to do to M. Bondon."
Delight bubbled out of him as he walked from the Avignon Railway Station up the Cours de la Republique. The wretch Bondon lay at his mercy. He had not proceeded far, however, when his quick eye caught sight of an object in the ramshackle display of a curiosity dealer"s. He paused in front of the window, fascinated. He rubbed his eyes.
"No," said he; "it is not a dream. The _bon Dieu_ is on my side."
He went into the shop and bought the object. It was a pair of handcuffs.
At a little after three o"clock the small and dilapidated hotel omnibus drove up before the Hotel de la Curatterie, and from it descended Aristide Pujol, radiant-eyed, and a scrubby little man with a goatee beard, pince-nez, and a dome-like forehead, who, pale and trembling, seemed stricken with a great fear. It was Bondon. Together they entered the little hall. As soon as Bocardon saw his enemy his eyes blazed with fury, and, uttering an inarticulate roar, he rushed out of the bureau with clenched fists murderously uplifted. The terrified Bondon shrank into a corner, protected by Aristide, who, smiling like an angel of peace, intercepted the onslaught of the huge man.
"Be calm, my good Bocardon, be calm."
But Bocardon would not be calm. He found his voice.
"Ah, scoundrel! Miscreant! Wretch! Traitor!" When his vocabulary of vituperation and his breath failed him, he paused and mopped his forehead.
Bondon came a step or two forward.
"I know, monsieur, I have all the wrong on my side. Your anger is justifiable. But I never dreamt of the disastrous effect of my acts. Let me see her, my good M. Bocardon, I beseech you."
"Let you see her?" said Bocardon, growing purple in the face.
At this moment Zette came running up the pa.s.sage.
"What is all this noise about?"
"Ah, madame!" cried Bondon, eagerly, "I am heart-broken. You who are so kind--let me see her."
"_Hein_?" exclaimed Bocardon, in stupefaction.
"See whom?" asked Zette.
"My dear dead one. My dear Euphemie, who has committed suicide."
"But he"s mad!" shouted Bocardon, in his great voice. "Euphemie!
Euphemie! Come here!"
At the sight of Euphemie, pale and shivering with apprehension, Bondon sank upon a bench by the wall. He stared at her as if she were a ghost.
"I don"t understand," he murmured, faintly, looking like a trapped hare at Aristide Pujol, who, debonair, hands on hips, stood a little way apart.
"Nor I, either," cried Bocardon.
A great light dawned on Zette"s beautiful face. "I do understand." She exchanged glances with Aristide. He came forward.
"It"s very simple," said he, taking the stage with childlike exultation.
"I go to find Bondon this morning to kill him. In the train I have a sudden inspiration, a revelation from Heaven. It is not Zette but Euphemie that is the _bonne amie_ of Bondon. I laugh, and frighten a long-toothed English old maid out of her wits. Shall I get out at Tarascon and return to Nimes and tell you, or shall I go on? I decide to go on. I make my plan. Ah, but when I make a plan, it"s all in a second, a flash, _pfuit!_ At Avignon I see a pair of handcuffs. I buy them. I spend hours tracking that animal there. At last I find him at the station about to start for Lyon. I tell him I am a police agent. I let him see the handcuffs, which convince him. I tell him Euphemie, in consequence of the discovery of his letter, has committed suicide. There is a _proces-verbal_ at which he is wanted. I summon him to accompany me in the name of the law--and there he is."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND YOU!" SHOUTED BOCARDON, FALLING ON ARISTIDE; "I MUST EMBRACE YOU ALSO"]
"Then that letter was not for my wife?" said Bocardon, who was not quick-witted.
"But, no, imbecile!" cried Aristide.
Bocardon hugged his wife in his vast embrace. The tears ran down his cheeks.
"Ah, my little Zette, my little Zette, will you ever pardon me?"
"_Oui, je te pardonne, gros jaloux_," said Zette.
"And you!" shouted Bocardon, falling on Aristide; "I must embrace you also." He kissed him on both cheeks, in his expansive way, and thrust him towards Zette.
"You can also kiss my wife. It is I, Bocardon, who command it."
The fire of a not ign.o.ble pride raced through Aristide"s veins. He was a hero. He knew it. It was a moment worth living.
The embraces and other expressions of joy and grat.i.tude being temporarily suspended, attention was turned to the unheroic couple who up to then had said not one word to each other. The explanation of their conduct, too, was simple, apparently. They were in love. She had no dowry. He could not marry her, as his parents would not give their consent. She, for her part, was frightened to death by the discovery of the letter, lest Bocardon should turn her out of the house.
"What dowry will satisfy your parents?"
"Nothing less than twelve thousand francs."
"I give it," said Bocardon, reckless in his newly-found happiness.
"Marry her."
The clock in the bureau struck four. Aristide pulled out his watch.
"_Saperlipopette!_" he cried, and disappeared like a flash into the street.
"But what"s the matter with him?" shouted Bocardon, in amazement.
Zette went to the door. "He"s running as if he had the devil at his heels."
"Was he always like that?" asked her husband.
"How always?"
"_Parbleu!_ When you used to see him at your Aunt Leonie"s."
Zette flushed red. To repudiate the saviour of her entire family were an act of treachery too black for her ingenuous heart.
"Ah, yes," she replied, calmly, coming back into the hall. "We used to call him Cousin Quicksilver."
In the big avenue Aristide hailed a pa.s.sing cab.