The Seigneur was flattered out of all reason. He looked across at the post-office, where he could see Rosalie dimly moving in the shade of the shop.
“Ah, if I had but ordered this coat sooner!” he said regretfully. He was thinking that to-morrow was Michaelmas day, when he was to ask Rosalie for her answer again, and he fancied himself appearing before her in the gentle cool of the evening, in this coat, lightly thrown back, disclosing his embroidered waistcoat, seals, and snowy linen. “Monsieur, I am highly complimented, believe me,” he said. “Observe, Cure, that this coat is invented for me on the spot.”
The Cure nodded appreciatively. “Wonderful! Wonderful! But do you not think,” he added, a little wistfully—for, was he not a Frenchman, susceptible like all his race to the appearance of things?—“do you not think it might be too fashionable for me?”
“Not a whit—not a whit,” replied the Seigneur generously. “Should not a Cure look distinguished—be dignified? Consider the length, the line, the eloquence of design! Ah, Monsieur, once again, you are an artist! The Cure shall wear it—indeed but he shall! Then I shall look like him, and perhaps get credit for some of his perfections.”
“And the Cure?” said Charley.
“The Cure?—the Cure? Tiens, a little of my worldliness will do him good. There are no contrasts in him. He must wear the coat.” He waved his walking-stick complacently, for he was thinking that the Cure’s less perfect figure would set off his own well as they walked together. “May I have the honour to keep this as a souvenir?” he added, picking up the sketch.
“With pleasure,” answered Charley. “You do not need it?”
“Not at all.”
The Cure looked a little disappointed, and Charley, seeing, immediately sketched on brown paper the priestly figure in the new-created coat, a la Rossignol. On this drawing he was a little longer engaged, with the result that the Cure was reproduced with a singular fidelity—in face, figure, and expression a personality gentle yet important.
“On my soul, you shall not have it!” said the Seigneur. “But you shall have me, and I shall have you, lest we both grow vain by looking at ourselves.” He thrust the sketch of himself into the Cure’s hands, and carefully rolled up that of his friend.