The end of the broken song was received with loud laughter from the students, who shrieked and coughed until the tears stood in their eyes—they flung pence at the old woman’s feet. Women were standing on tables, students were crowded in a ring about her.
“Thou hast danced with Victor Hugo, Margot, my pearl—show us how!” cried a bearded cub from the schools.
She bowed—gathered up her seedy tattered skirts with something of the old-world grand manner that went with the stately crinoline, and, showing down-at-heel boots of the elastic-sided variety that are called “jemimas,” her feet got shuffling to the steps of an old dance of the quarter. In the sunken hollows of the wan old face hovered the ghost of the set smile that dancers smile, baring toothless gums—the lights flickered but feebly in her lamp of life—she skipped the steps now right, now left, now back, now forward, with the stiff travesty of old age—and set the tables in a roar. A grotesque attempt at high-kicking brought down thunders of applause. The sous showered upon the floor.
She picked up the scattered money with pathetic weary old hands; bowed to the applause, and taking her way stiffly through the café, passed out into the night.
And to Betty it was as though the shadow of death had passed amongst the revellers. Ay, even youth must come to that—the mockery and ghost of its dead self.
“Ah, that is old Margot.” Babette touched Betty’s hand. “She comes out so at night—it was here she had her triumphs fifty years ago.”
“And—the end?”
Babette shrugged:
“She is rich,” she said—“she comes out so at night—but in the day she is rich. She has a villa in the country. Oh, but yes ... Gaston Latour has seen it. Last year. Ah, she was so droll—she had sung a love-song in the tenderest manner. Gaston gave her a gold piece by mistake for silver. She was here the next night—Gaston also. He told her. “Bien!” said old Margot, and gave him her card.... He went by rail—the villa was on a lake—charming. He knocked. A servant opened the door. He was shown into a salon. Madame would come in a moment. Madame Margot came. Ah, yes, said she, the twenty-franc piece! She opened a cabinet and gave it to him. Gaston, dumbfounded, thanked her, was retiring towards the door thanking her, apologizing. She put her hand on his sleeve: ‘But, monsieur has forgotten the franc!’”
Betty smiled: