“Your arrival and our happiness have turned my head with joy,” said he, to explain this crazy mood.
“And I had fancied you had ceased to love me!” exclaimed the poor woman, dropping the handbag she was carrying, and weeping with joy as she sank into a chair.
“Make yourself at home, my darling,” said Etienne, laughing in his sleeve; “I must write two lines to excuse myself from a bachelor party, for I mean to devote myself to you. Give your orders; you are at home.”
Etienne wrote to Bixiou:
“MY DEAR BOY,—My Baroness has dropped into my arms, and will be
fatal to my marriage unless we perform one of the most familiar
stratagems of the thousand and one comedies at the Gymnase. I rely
on you to come here, like one of Moliere’s old men, to scold your
nephew Leandre for his folly, while the Tenth Muse lies hidden in
my bedroom; you must work on her feelings; strike hard, be brutal,
offensive. I, you understand, shall express my blind devotion, and
shall seem to be deaf, so that you may have to shout at me.
“Come, if you can, at seven o’clock.
“Yours,
“E. LOUSTEAU.”
Having sent this letter by a commissionaire to the man who, in all Paris, most delighted in such practical jokes—in the slang of artists, a charge—Lousteau made a great show of settling the Muse of Sancerre in his apartment. He busied himself in arranging the luggage she had brought, and informed her as to the persons and ways of the house with such perfect good faith, and a glee which overflowed in kind words and caresses, that Dinah believed herself the best-beloved woman in the world. These rooms, where everything bore the stamp of fashion, pleased her far better than her old chateau.
Pamela Migeon, the intelligent damsel of fourteen, was questioned by the journalist as to whether she would like to be waiting-maid to the imposing Baroness. Pamela, perfectly enchanted, entered on her duties at once, by going off to order dinner from a restaurant on the boulevard. Dinah was able to judge of the extreme poverty that lay hidden under the purely superficial elegance of this bachelor home when she found none of the necessaries of life. As she took possession of the closets and drawers, she indulged in the fondest dreams; she would alter Etienne’s habits, she would make him home-keeping, she would fill his cup of domestic happiness.
The novelty of the position hid its disastrous side; Dinah regarded reciprocated love as the absolution of her sin; she did not yet look beyond the walls of these rooms. Pamela, whose wits were as sharp as those of a lorette, went straight to Madame Schontz to beg the loan of some plate, telling her what had happened to Lousteau. After making the child welcome to all she had, Madame Schontz went off to her friend Malaga, that Cardot might be warned of the catastrophe that had befallen his future son-in-law.
The journalist, not in the least uneasy about the crisis as affecting his marriage, was more and more charming to the lady from the provinces. The dinner was the occasion of the delightful child’s-play of lovers set at liberty, and happy to be free. When they had had their coffee, and Lousteau was sitting in front of the fire, Dinah on his knee, Pamela ran in with a scared face.
“Here is Monsieur Bixiou!” said she.