"It is all so wonderful," continued Marcelle after a moment, "and yet I have never seemed to understand it till to-day,—this great, sweet voice of Paris. It is indeed as if she was the mother of us all, Papa Labesse, and was spreading out her arms, and calling us all to come to her heart. And for each of us she has something good—something better than ever we have imagined for ourselves, or wished to have; and yet, in whatever form, it is really the same thing always—l'amour, Papa Labesse, l'amour!"
Out of the strain of the past half hour a great sob was suddenly wrung from Papa Labesse. He took the girl's radiant face between his knotted hands and looked long into her eyes without speaking.
"Tell me, my pigeon," he said, finally, "is it—is it the young Fremier?"
Marcelle flung both arms about his neck, as she had done on the day when he had given her the little white prayerbook. He felt her lips, warm and moist, against his wrinkled ear, and when she spoke, her voice was like the sound of two leaves grazing each other at the touch of a light breeze.
"Oui!" she said.
When Marcelle went away with Bombiste Fremier, all the quartier babbled. Fat fishwives and dairywomen stopped at each others' doors, and said, wisely, with their heads together and hands on hips, that they had always known how it would be. Since the first, whatever Bombiste wanted, that Bombiste was sure to have—what? Did not Madame Rollin remember how, when a mere baby, he had cried for the little brass dish which hung in front of his father's salle de coiffure, until, actually, Fremier père had taken it down and given it to him to cut his first tooth on? Assuredly, Madame Rollin recalled this astounding incident, and not only that, but the fact that she herself had spoken to Madame Fremier, warning her that the result of such folly would be the unhappiness of some one. But they were all alike, the Fremier. They made no excuses and took no advice.
There were others who recalled the days when La Trompette was the belle of the quartier, and as respectable as the best of them. But there, what wouldst thou? Bombiste had wanted her, so there was nothing to be done. And the debate invariably ended with a bit of flattery for Bombiste. It was a beau garçon, after all, name of a good name, with such eyes! And a tongue, bon Dieu, to draw the cork from a bottle! For there are many mysteries of human society, but the greatest of these is the good word of the other women for the man.
Curiously enough, Bombiste's most eloquent partisan was La Trompette herself. Her first appearance at Le Cheval Blanc, after Fremier's desertion of her, was the signal for the outburst of ironic condolence.
"Eh! La Trompette, he has planted thee—yes? So the cord is cut, little one—hein? Did he give thee a reference, at least?"
To these, and many similar compliments, La Trompette returned nothing beyond a tolerant smile, or—