SEVENTH REFLECTION
But certain fierce and earnest words whispered in his ear with excited persistency began at last to penetrate the vacuum of his deadened brain. Puzzled, he turned to face the speaker.
A thin, blond young man with white eyelashes was begging anxiously:
“I’ll give you a hundred francs for that hat! I’ll give you two hundred! I’ll give you five hundred——”
Ventrillon blinked. Then his brain cleared, as does the atmosphere with lightning.
“No!” he thundered in a voice which filled the room. “Nom de dieu! No!” And Ventrillon was himself again.
“A chair!” he shouted. “Somebody find me a chair!”
Nobody knew what was going to happen next, but everybody was ready and delighted to do anything which might promote its happening. From somewhere a chair was passed over the heads of the crowd. Ventrillon mounted upon it.
For a moment he paused. The beauty of his young face and the verve of his pose commanded a spontaneous burst of applause; but as he opened his mouth to speak, the noise died quickly into breathless silence.
“Messieurs et ’dames,” he cried, “Regard me this hat! There is none other like it. Never has such a thing happened before, and never will it happen again. Here is the unique hat crushed by the umbrella of the great Belletaille, and merely to own it is to render yourself famous. Now attend to this extraordinary fact! I, Odillon Ventrillon, stand here upon this chair, willing to part with this treasure. It is incredible, but, messieurs et ’dames, how much am I bid?”
This turn of affairs was not banal; it was not at all banal. And it was perfectly true that the shapeless hat which Ventrillon was offering was already historic. It was on a par with the shoes of Catherine de’ Medici in the Musée de Cluny. The highest bidder would be the envied of tout Paris.
“Six hundred francs,” piped the tenor of the blond youth, breaking the silence.
“A thousand francs,” cried an extravagantly dressed South American, enjoying himself hugely. There was a burst of applause.
“Ah, no, monsieur,” regretted Ventrillon; “there will be higher bids than that.”
“Two thousand,” abruptly announced an ambitious lady, wearing pink pearls, from the midst of a group of her three daughters dressed exactly alike in yellow cotton.
“Only two thousand francs!” shouted Ventrillon. “Madame, you do yourself the injustice of underestimating its value.”
“Two thousand, five hundred,” recklessly screamed the blond youth. The ambitious lady turned pale.
“O Maman,” cried the eldest of her three daughters, “bid again! We are so rich, and he is so beautiful!”
“Yes, Maman!” urged the other two, breathlessly. A ripple of amusement spread through the crowd.
“Two thousand, five hundred, and seventy-five,” announced that lady with excessive poise, and switched a superior smile over the entire assembly.
But the bidding became general, and little by little the price went up. The hat was now the sensation of Paris; every franc bid increased the sensation; and tout Paris, which lives on sensation, bid on. Then entered the lists a modest little gentleman with a pince-nez, a nouveau riche of the war, who felt himself intruding wherever he went. His timid voice becoming weaker with every increase until at last it was only a whisper, he began persistently overtopping every bid made.
“Four thousand, forty-five,” bid the blond youth.
“Four thousand, fifty,” bid the gentleman in the pince-nez.
“Four thousand, fifty-five,” bid the lady in pearls.
“Four thousand, sixty,” bid the gentleman in the pince-nez, almost automatically.
The lady in pearls set her jaw.
“Four thousand, sixty-one,” she pronounced grimly.
The blond youth mopped his overheated brow and shot his bolt.
“Four thousand, eighty!” and, immediately over-bid by the little gentleman in the pince-nez, rushed frantically from the room. Another bid in a voice without identity.
“Five thousand miserable little francs!” thundered Ventrillon, scornfully. “And the rate of exchange, what it is? Bon dieu! It is an insult to Mademoiselle Belletaille!”
But the sum was already beyond even reason of unreason; it was as if a cold wind had blown into the room. Ventrillon became sensitive to the situation.
“Five thousand, five hundred,” suddenly whispered the little gentleman in the pince-nez.
“Five thousand, five hundred,” shouted Ventrillon, quickly. “Going, going—-” For a moment there was dead silence.
“O Maman,” excitedly cried the eldest daughter of the lady in pearls, “is it too late?”
“Chut!” hissed the mother, pinching her daughter’s arm until she squealed.
“Gone,” thundered Ventrillon, with finality—“gone to the dignified monsieur in the pince-nez.”
That little man advanced conspicuously to take possession. The crowd cheered wildly. Volland made his way in through the uproar.
“Of course, my friend,” he said genially, rubbing his hands before the chair of Ventrillon, “you will not forget my commission. A hat is not art, to be sure, but I am accustomed to 10 per cent. on sales made in my galleries.”
Ventrillon, with an air, peeled off five hundred-franc notes and one fifty from the huge packet the dignified little monsieur with the pince-nez had produced from his pockets, and presented them to Volland.
He who was accustomed to wearing a hat of eight reflections went bareheaded that evening to his garret.
“But,” reflected Ventrillon, “one never wears a hat to eat. Politeness forbids.” And that night he would dine extravagantly.