“‘Why—what—my ladies, you are—you were—?’
“‘Yes, we were—yes, we are—’
“Her broad face turned lilac and poppy-colored—a very palette for an impressionist painter. And so with M. Laugeron and the entire hotel service. Since our arrival we have been demanding an extra candlestick in vain; now there are five on the chimneypiece. I can promise you that Numa will be well served and installed; they will give him the first story, occupied by the Prince of Anhalt, which will be vacant in three days. It appears that the waters of Arvillard are bad for the princess; and even the little doctor himself believes it is better that she should leave as quickly as possible. That is what is best—because if a tragedy should occur the Alpes Dauphinoises would never recover from the blow.
“It is really pitiable, the hurry there is about the departure of these wretched people, the way they edge them off, the way they shove them along in consequence of that magnetic hostility which places seem to exhale where a person is no longer wanted. Poor Princess of Anhalt, whose arrival here was made such a festival! a little more and they would have her conducted to the borders of the department between two policemen—that is the hospitality of watering places!
“And by the way, how about Bompard? You haven’t told me whether he is coming too or not. Dangerous Bompard! If he should come I am quite capable of eloping with him on some glacier. What intellectual development might we not discover between us, as we approached the snowy peaks! I laugh, I am so delighted—and I go on inhaling, a little embarrassed, it is true, by the neighborhood of that terrible Bouchereau, who has just come in and seated himself two seats away from me.
“What an obdurate air he has, that man, to be sure! His hands crossed on the knob of his cane and chin resting on his hands, he talks away in a high voice, looking straight ahead, without really speaking to anybody. Do you suppose that I must take it as a lesson for me, what he says of the lack of prudence among the ladies who bathe, about their gowns of thin linen, about the folly of going out of doors after dinner in a country where the evenings are mortally cold? Horrid man, one would believe he is aware that I propose this evening to beg for charities at the Arvillard church in aid of the work of the propaganda! Father Olivieri is to describe from the pulpit his missionary trips into Thibet, his captivity and martyrdom, while Mlle. Bachellery will sing the ‘Ave Maria’ of Gounod, and I am going to have the greatest fun on our return to the hotel, marching through all the little dark streets by lantern-light, just like a regular ‘retreat’ with torches.
“If that is a consultation on my health which M. Bouchereau was giving me, I don’t want it; it is too late. In the first place, my very dear sir! I have full permission from my little doctor, who is far more amiable than you are and has even allowed me to take a turn at a waltz in the drawing-room at the close. Oh, only a little one, of course; besides, if I dance a little too much, everybody goes for me! They do not understand that I am robust, notwithstanding a figure like a long lead-pencil and that a Parisian girl never gets ill from dancing too much. ‘Look out now—don’t tire yourself too much.’ This woman will bring me up my shawl, that man will close the window at my back for fear that I should catch cold; but the most interested of all is the youth with springs, because he has discovered that I have a devilish deal more springs than his sister.
“Poor girl, that would not be difficult! Between you and me, I believe that, rendered desperate by the frigidity of Alice Bachellery, this young gentleman has retired upon me and proposes to make love to me—but alas, how he loses his labor; for my heart is taken, it is all Bompard’s!—O, well, after all, no, it is not Bompard’s, and you know that too. The personage in my romance is not Bompard, it is—it is—ha, ha! so much the worse for you! my hour is up; I will tell you some other day, Miss Haughtiness!”
CHAPTER XII.
A WATERING-PLACE (continued).
The morning on which the Bathers’ Gazette announced that his Excellency, the Minister of Public Instruction, with his secretary Bompard and staff, had taken quarters in the Alpes Dauphinoises, great was the demoralization in the surrounding hotels. It just happened that La Laita had been keeping dark for two days a Catholic bishop from Geneva in order to produce him at the proper moment, as well as a Councillor-General from the Department of the Isère, a Lieutenant-Judge from Tahiti, an architect from Boston—in fact, a whole cargo; La Chevrette was on the point of receiving also a “Deputy from the Rhône and family.” But the Deputy, the Lieutenant-Judge and all disappeared, lost in the illustrious mass of flame, the flame of glory, which followed Numa Roumestan everywhere!