As soon as Schmucke had dismissed La Cibot, Pons turned to the ballet-girl.
"Dear child, I can trust no one else to find me a notary, an honest man, and send him here to make my will to-morrow morning at half-past nine precisely. I want to leave all that I have to Schmucke. If he is persecuted, poor German that he is, I shall reckon upon the notary; the notary must defend him. And for that reason I must have a wealthy notary, highly thought of, a man above the temptations to which pettifogging lawyers yield. He must succor my poor friend. I cannot trust Berthier, Cardot's successor. And you know so many people—"
"Oh! I have the very man for you," Heloise broke in; "there is the notary that acts for Florine and the Comtesse du Bruel, Leopold Hannequin, a virtuous man that does not know what a lorette is! He is a sort of chance-come father—a good soul that will not let you play ducks and drakes with your earnings; I call him Le Pere aux Rats, because he instils economical notions into the minds of all my friends. In the first place, my dear fellow, he has a private income of sixty thousand francs; and he is a notary of the real old sort, a notary while he walks or sleeps; his children must be little notaries and notaresses. He is a heavy, pedantic creature, and that's the truth; but on his own ground, he is not the man to flinch before any power in creation. . . . No woman ever got money out of him; he is a fossil pater-familias, his wife worships him, and does not deceive him, although she is a notary's wife.—What more do you want? as a notary he has not his match in Paris. He is in the patriarchal style; not queer and amusing, as Cardot used to be with Malaga; but he will never decamp like little What's-his-name that lived with Antonia. So I will send round my man to-morrow morning at eight o'clock. . . . You may sleep in peace. And I hope, in the first place, that you will get better, and make charming music for us again; and yet, after all, you see, life is very dreary—managers chisel you, and kings mizzle and ministers fizzle and rich fold economizzle.—Artists have nothing left here" (tapping her breast)—"it is a time to die in. Good-bye, old boy."
"Heloise, of all things, I ask you to keep my counsel."
"It is not a theatre affair," she said; "it is sacred for an artist."
"Who is your gentleman, child?"
"M. Baudoyer, the mayor of your arrondissement, a man as stupid as the late Crevel; Crevel once financed Gaudissart, you know, and a few days ago he died and left me nothing, not so much as a pot of pomatum. That made me say just now that this age of ours is something sickening."
"What did he die of?"
"Of his wife. If he had stayed with me, he would be living now. Good-bye, dear old boy, I am talking of going off, because I can see that you will be walking about the boulevards in a week or two, hunting up pretty little curiosities again. You are not ill; I never saw your eyes look so bright." And she went, fully convinced that her protege Garangeot would conduct the orchestra for good.
Every door stood ajar as she went downstairs. Every lodger, on tip-toe, watched the lady of the ballet pass on her way out. It was quite an event in the house.