"Ah, chère madame! il n'y a que vous—it is only you who can make the ideal omelette! I have tried, but Suzette has no art in her fingers; your receipt doesn't work away from the Mont!" And the good man sighed as he chuckled forth his praises.
He had come up to the hill in company with the two excellent ladies beside him, of his flock, to make a little visit to his brethren yonder, to the priests who were still here, wrecks of the once former flourishing monastery. He had come to see them, and also to gaze on La Merveille. It was a good five years since he had looked upon its dungeons and its lace-work. But after all, in his secret soul of souls, he had longed to eat of the omelette. Dieu! how often during those slow, quiet years in the little hamlet yonder on the plain, had its sweetness and lightness mocked his tongue with illusive tasting! Little wonder, therefore, that the good curé's praises were sweet in madame's ear, for they had the ring of truth—and of envy! And madame herself was only mortal, for what woman lives but feels herself uplifted by the sense of having found favor in the eyes of her priest?
The omelette next came to a halt between the two ladies of the curé's flock. These were two bourgeoises with the deprecating, mistrustful air peculiar to commonplace the world over. The walk up the steep stairs was still quickening their breath their compressed bosoms were straining the hooks of their holiday woollen bodices—cut when they were of slenderer build. Their bonnets proclaimed the antique fashions of a past decade; but the edge of their tongues had the keenness that comes with daily practice—than which none has been found surer than adoration of one's pastor, and the invigorating gossip of small towns.
These ladies eyed the omelette with a chilled glance. Naturally, they could not see as much to admire in Madame Poulard or in her dish as did their curé. There was nothing so wonderful after all in the turning of eggs over a hot fire. The omelette!—after all, an omelette is an omelette! Some are better—some are worse; one has one's luck in cooking as in anything else. They had come up to the Mont with their good curé to see its wonders and for a day's outing; admiration of other women had not been anticipated as a part of the programme. Tiens—who was he talking to now? To that tall blonde—a foreigner, a young girl—tiens—who knows?—possibly an American—those Americans are terrible, they say—bold, immodest, irreverent. And the two ladies' necks were screwed about their over-tight collars, to give Charm the verdict of their disapproval.
"Monsieur le Curé, they are passing you the fish!" cried the stouter, more aggressive parishioner, who boasted a truculent mustache.
"Monsieur le Curé, the roast is at your elbow!" interpolated the second, with the more timid voice of a second in action; this protector of the good curé had no mustache, but her face was mercifully protected by nature from a too-disturbing combination of attractions, by being plentifully punctuated with moles from which sprouted little tufts of hair. The rain of these ladies' interruption was incessant; but the curé was a man of firm mind; their efforts to recapture his attention were futile. For the music of Charm's foreign voice was in his ear. Worship of the cloth is not a national, it is a more or less universal cult, I take it. It is in the blood of certain women. Opposite the two fussy, jealous bourgeoises, were others as importunate and aggressive. They were of fair, lean, lank English build, with the shifting eyes and the persistent courage which come to certain maidens in whose lives there is but one fixed and certain fact—that of having missed the matrimonial market. The shrine of their devotions, and the present citadel of their attack, was seated between them—he also being lean, pale, high-arched of brow, high anglican by choice, and noticeably weak of chin, in whose sable garments there was framed the classical clerical tie.
To this curate Madame was now passing her dish. She still wore her fine sweet smile, but there was always a discriminating reserve in its edge when she touched the English elbow. The curate took his spoonful with the indifference of a man who had never known the religion of good eating. He put up his one eye-glass; it swept Madame's bending face, its smile, and the yellow glory floating beneath both. "Ah-h—ya-as—an omelette!" The glass was dropped; he took a meagre spoonful which he cut, presently, with his knife. He turned then to his neighbors—to both his neighbors! They had been talking of the parish church on the hill.
"Ah-h-h, ya-as—lovely porch—isn't it?"
"Oh, lovely—lovely!" chorussed the two maidens, with assenting fervor. "Were you there this morning?" and they lifted eyes swimming with the rapture of their admiration.
"Ya-as."