"What he ought to say, madame, is "Bountiful Providence, I thank Thee for giving me such a beautiful wife.""
Mrs. Ducksmith blushed and, to conceal her face, bent it over her resumed knitting. She made woman"s time-honoured response.
"I don"t think you ought to say such things, Mr. Pujol."
"Ah, madame," said he, lowering his voice; "I have tried not to; but, _que voulez-vous_, it was stronger than I. When I see you going about like a little grey mouse"--the lady weighed at least twelve stone--"you, who ought to be ravishing the eyes of mankind, I feel indignation here"--he thumped his chest; "my Provencal heart is stirred. It is enough to make one weep."
"I don"t quite understand you, Mr. Pujol," she said, dropping st.i.tches recklessly.
"Ah, madame," he whispered--and the rascal"s whisper on such occasions could be very seductive--"that I will never believe."
"I am too old to dress myself up in fine clothes," she murmured.
"That"s an illusion," said he, with a wide-flung gesture, "that will vanish at the first experiment."
Mr. Ducksmith emerged from the salon, _Daily Telegraph_ in hand. Mrs.
Ducksmith shot a timid glance at him and the knitting needles clicked together nervously. But the vacant eyes of the heavy man seemed no more to note the rose on her bosom than they noted any point of beauty in landscape or building.
Aristide went away chuckling, highly diverted by the success of his first effort. He had touched some hidden springs of feeling. Whatever might happen, at any rate, for the remainder of the tour he would not have to spend his emotional force in vain attempts to knock sparks out of a jelly-fish. He noticed with delight that at dinner that evening Mrs. Ducksmith, still wearing the rose, had modified the rigid sweep of her hair from the mid-parting. It gave just a wavy hint of coquetry. He made her a little bow and whispered, "Charming!"
Whereupon she coloured and dropped her eyes. And during the meal, while Mr. Ducksmith discoursed on bounty-fed sugar, his wife and Aristide exchanged, across the table, the glances of conspirators.
After dinner he approached her.
"Madame, may I have the privilege of showing you the moon of Touraine?"
She laid down her knitting. "Bartholomew, will you come out?"
He looked at her over his gla.s.ses and shook his head.
"What is the good of looking at moonshine? The moon itself I have already seen."
So Aristide and Mrs. Ducksmith sat by themselves outside the hotel, and he expounded to her the beauty of moonlight and its intoxicating effect on folks in love.
"Wouldn"t you like," said he, "to be lying on that white burnished cloud with your beloved kissing your feet?"
"What odd things you think of."
"But wouldn"t you?" he insinuated.
Her bosom heaved and swelled on a sigh. She watched the strip of silver for a while and then murmured a wistful "Yes."
"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. _Chere 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 rea.s.sured 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 n.o.ble 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 Angouleme, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts for cooks and housemaids. In these circ.u.mstances 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 _maitre d"hotel_ helped them to great slabs of _pate de foie gras_, made in the house--most of the hotel-keepers in Perigord make _pate 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 facades 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 G.o.d"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?"