“Nonsense,” I answered; but she was as good as her word, and thenceforth Carabas, restored to her smiles and graces, was like a soul renewed, strutting in a seventh heaven of confidence and gratified vanity. I had asked Fifine for a breeze, and she had answered womanlike with a gale, with the result that the fellow was blown up to an inordinate figure of pride—of bounce, I might say, in that inflated connection. He assumed a sort of amative proprietorship over my companion, while he tolerated rather than patronised me. And I was the one cold-shouldered now, Fifine seeming to relish that fatuous devotion the more, the more she was besieged by it.
So, I might congratulate myself, were things obligingly accommodating themselves to the exact end I had in view; and, better still, it was now plain to me that my apprehensions as to the state of the young lady’s feelings had been wholly without justification. It was all, in fact, as it should be and as I would have it, I told myself; and, though it might appear characteristically feminine to forget sober services such as mine in the intoxication wrought of a flattering pursuit, I was not going to make a sex squabble of the matter. Woman’s capacity for absorbing flummery was notoriously beyond man’s gauging, and if in that respect quality counted for anything, it was merely the quality which could untiringly repeat itself. And there, I was sure, Carabas was infinitely my superior: his resources in the way of picturesque lip-homage were no doubt inexhaustible. So altogether I resolved to take advantage of the opening the gods had given me to shake free of a possible embarrassment. I would let it appear that I felt not the slightest resentment over the young woman’s behaviour, or assumed to myself the least authority over, or personal concern in, her preferences. And then, of course, I was quite satisfied in my mind and happy.
But, before this state of things came wholly to pass—and it was a matter of some days’ growth—the poor troubadour had to run his gauntlet, erst-mentioned, of bitter snubs and mortifications. I really commiserated him, as I have said, in his dole, which nevertheless he persisted in courting with the most unblenching stoicism. In these sad hours he even showed towards me a certain spirit of propitiation, though never to the extent of seeming to allow me the least of proprietary interests in the object of his adoration. He regarded me rather as the thorn in the wilderness, which, troublesome in itself, had yet acquired a sort of spurious importance through its connexion with the rose of his desire. Once or twice, when Fifine was not by, we exchanged amenities of a sort; and once I was actually bold enough to question him on a detail of his tenderer confidences.
“That was a pretty legend,” I said, “you told Mademoiselle Dane.”
“Which legend, Monsieur?” he answered, pricking up his ears at the name.
“That of Bérard and Briande Sans-fleur.”
“Ah!” he said, “I can charm a skeleton into life; from a little seed I can produce a fruitful vine. That is to be what I am. Into the alembic of this mind one puts a pinch of dust; and, lo! I return it to him, a golden nugget. Mademoiselle was transported?”
“She liked it anyhow, well enough to tell it me again. Only one point she failed over—Bérard’s song.”
“She would fail,” he said; “but not from want of appreciation. It moved her?”
“I daresay it did.”