“Frédéric, you are on a wrong scent,” he answered solemnly. “Think not that I, a scion of the noble house of Montredon, irresponsible though I may be, would lose my heart to a little chit of a laundress—but, I don’t know if you share this feeling, I find it impossible to pass a pretty face without turning round to gaze at it. In short, after a little conversation with the girl, we arranged that she should
| Anselm Mathieu. | Théodore Aubanel. |
wash for me and come to fetch my things next week!”
I upbraided him for an unscrupulous scoundrel, but he interrupted me again, saying I had not yet grasped the situation, and begging me to listen to the end of his tale.
“While chatting with my little friend,” he continued, “I noticed she was rubbing away at a dainty chemise of finest linen, trimmed with lace. It excited my curiosity and admiration—I inquired to whom it belonged? ‘This chemise,’ the young girl answered, ‘belongs to one of the most beautiful ladies in Aix—a baronne of some thirty summers, married, poor thing, to an old curmudgeon who is a judge of the Courts and jealous as a Turk.’ ‘She must be bored to death,’ I cried. ‘Ah yes,’ she replied, ‘she is bored to death, poor lady. There she sits on her balcony waiting, one would say, for some gallant gentleman who shall come to the rescue.’ I inquired her name, but here she demurred, saying she was but the laundress, and had no right to mix herself up in affairs that did not concern her. Not a word more could I get out of her; but,” added Mathieu hopefully, “when she comes for my washing next week, it is a pity if I don’t make her open her lips by bestowing two or three good kisses upon them.”
“And when you know the name of the lady, what then?” I asked.
“What then? Why, my dear fellow, I have bread in the cupboard for three years! While you other poor devils are grinding away at your law studies, I, like the troubadours of old Provence, shall at my leisure study beneath my lady’s balcony the gentle art of the laws of love.”