“Good-night, Monsieur, and thank you a thousand times for your kindness.”
“But I am myself going to stay here,” answered the troubadour, with an appealing look at her.
She said “O!” and, turning her back on him, walked straight into the hall.
Rooms for Monsieur Dane and Mademoiselle his sister? Assuredly; there were two of the best vacant at the moment on the first floor. The first floor meant first prices; but was not the lady to be entertained a Countess incognito? “Va, Madame!” said I to the distinguished proprietress; and Fifine and I were shown up. I don’t know where M. Cabarus bestowed himself, but in quarters, I expect, less luxurious than ours. We did not see him again that evening; but, once quit of his presence, Fifine’s manner to me recovered something of its severity. For some minutes, after we had rejoined company at the table d’hôte, she answered my remarks in only the coldest of monosyllables.
But presently she thawed. It was when a bottle of Veuve Clicquot I had ordered was placed on the table.
“Champagne!” she said. “That is too-great an extravagance, Felix.”
“Anything,” I responded, “for a summery atmosphere.”
She thought it wise to ignore my remark. “What makes champagne so expensive?” she said: “the insignificance of the crop that produces it?”
“It is made from a small grape,” I answered, “something like our English sweet-water; but that is not it. One of the chief reasons is the number of bottles broken during fermentation—that, and the complex nature of its preparation—” and I launched out into an elaborate disquisition on stopping and fining and sulphuring, on liqueuring and depositing and disgorging, only to find, when in the full flood of eloquence, that Fifine was not paying the slightest attention to me. I stopped; and she said immediately, in the most shameless manner:—
“Why did you invite him to come here?”