“Well, Alexis, my good friend, that is it. Could you not drop a little hint to the widow some time? Something like this——” he was silent.
“Something like a dumb man, eh?”
“Paufh! I have no way with the women, you will make a little hint to the widow.”
Just then there was a sound of footsteps on the walk. Alexis promptly blew out the candle, grasped his friend by the arm, and hurried him through the dark to the door. There he thrust his hat into his hand, and saying in his ear, “Good-night—good luck,” bolted the door after him.
The night had changed its mood. A gentle breeze, laden with soft moisture, blew from the dark woods; the mist was piled in a gray mass along the horizon; and in spaces of sky as delicately blue as blanched violets, small stars flashed clearly.
Cuerrier pursed up his lips and whistled the only tune he knew, one from “La Fille de Madame Angot.” He was uneasy, too uneasy to follow the intricacies of his tune, and he stopped whistling. He had told his friend that he was going to marry, and had mentioned the lady’s name; but what right had he to do that? “Old fool!” he said to himself. He remembered his feuds with his love’s guardian, some of them of years’ standing; he thought of his age, he ran through the years he might expect to live, and ended by calculating how much he was worth, valuing his three farms in an instant. He felt proud after that, and Césarine Angers did not seem quite so far off. He resolved, just before sleep caught him, to open the campaign at once, with the help of Alexis Girouard; but in the dream that followed he found himself successfully wooing the widow, wooing her with sneers and gibes, and rehearsals of the old quarrels that seemed to draw her smilingly toward him, as if there was some malign influence at work translating his words into irresistible phrases of endearment.
Monsieur Cuerrier commenced to wear a gallant blue waistcoat all dotted with white spots, and a silk necktie with fringed ends. “You see I am in the fashion now,” he explained to his friends. Villeblanc, the superannuated hairdresser, eyed him critically and commenced to suspect him. He blew a whistle of gratification when, one evening in mid-June, he saw the shy Cuerrier drop a rose, full blown, at the feet of Césarine Angers. His gratification was not unmixed when he saw Césarine pick it up and carry it away, blushing delicately. Cuerrier tried to whistle “La Fille de Madame Angot,” but his heart leaped into his throat, and his lips curled into a nervous smile.
“So—so!” said Villeblanc. “So—so! I think I’ll curl my gentleman’s wig for him.”
He was not unheedful of the beauty of Césarine. He spoke a word of enigmatical warning to the widow. “You had better put off your weeds. Are we not going to have a wedding?”