She laughed without offence, and gave me a knowing glance, but protested, “Non, sérieusement, je veux me soigner.” Then she turned to Elinor, and pleaded coaxingly, “Madame, tell him to give me fifty francs—pour me soigner.”
“No,” Elinor replied; “he won’t give you fifty francs, but this is what he will do, what we will do. If you will obey the doctor’s orders, send your friends about their business, and lead a perfectly regular life for the time being, we will undertake to see that you want for nothing during the next six months. After that, nous verrons! For the present, that is what we offer you: six months in which to give yourself every chance for a cure. Only, during those six months—faut etre sage.”
Of course, Zizi began to cry again; and, of course, she could do nothing less than accept Madame’s proposition with some show of effusion: though I mistrusted the whole-heartedness of her acceptance; she would much rather have pocketed the fifty francs, and had done with us.
Elinor and she fell to discussing sundry practical details. Good and abundant food, warm clothing, healthful lodgings: these were the three desiderata that Elinor prescribed. As for the last, Zizi assured us that she already had them—“since I live in the same house as Monsieur,” she explained, convincingly.
But Elinor was not convinced. “Do your rooms face south?” was the question she insisted on.
Now Zizi, about the points of the compass, and such abstruse matters generally, had no more idea than I have of Sanskrit; yet, “Oh, yes, my room gives to the noon,” she answered, without turning a hair. “And, anyhow, it is a very nice room.—Come and see,” she added, impulsively. “I should be charmed to show you.”
“I suppose it will be all right?” Elinor asked of me.
“Oh, no worse than the rest,” I acquiesced.
And so we took a cab, and were driven to the Rue St. Jacques. Madame Germaine parted from us at the threshold of the eating-house. “I have an engagement in the Parc Monceau,” she informed us, in the candour of her heart. Zizi jeered at her a good deal as we drove across the town. “Her ribbons—hein? Her goggle-eyes! Not at all comme il faut. But a brave girl. She loves me like a sister. Monsieur smiles. No, word of honour, it is not as you think.” If I had thought as Zizi thought I thought, I shouldn’t have smiled; but she, of course, couldn’t be expected to understand that. “Poor Germaine! Her real name is Gobbeau, Marthe Gobbeau. She is stupid and ugly, but she is good-natured,” which was more, perhaps, than one could say with truth of her little critic. “Her mother is an ouvreuse in the Théâtre de Belleville.”
“And her father?” queried Elinor.