Still, if we cannot witness his awakening, we may assuredly assume that M. le Roué is not a pleasant spectacle in the morning. And it is equally safe to suppose that his temper is detestable, his language deplorable, when the valet shaves his wan cheek, and fastens his stays, and helps him into his heavy fur coat; and thus, in a word, turns him into the impeccable if rickety old beau who lunches every day on the stroke of two o’clock in Sucré’s white-and-gold restaurant.
“Monsieur se porte bien?” inquires the maître d’hôtel, respectfully handing him the menu.
“Pas mal, pas mal,” replies M. le Roué, in his thin, feeble voice. And although the old gentleman has been advised to keep strictly to a diet of plain foods and Vichy water, both the dishes and the wines that he orders are elaborate and rich.
Once again I exclaim: “Wonderful, O most wonderful M. le Roué,” and once again I demand: “Who could fail to admire him?”
He declines to belong to the past, he refuses to go into retirement; so long as he can stand up in his stays he is heroically determined to lead the life of a viveur, a rake. See him, here in Sucré’s restaurant, revelling over his lobster; behold him kissing his trembling, white hand to the lady book-keeper, a handsome young woman with sparkling diamond earrings; and hear him, moreover, entertaining Joseph, the maître d’hôtel, with an account of the lively supper-party he presided over last night, at which Mesdemoiselles Liane de Luneville and Marguerite de Millefleurs (beautiful, brilliant ornaments of the demi-monde) were present, and Mademoiselle Pauline Boum, of the Casino de Paris, performed her latest “eccentric” dance.
All this from a gentleman half-way through the seventies! All this from a shaky, shrunken old fellow who ought, at the present moment, to be taking a careful constitutional in the Parc Monceau on the arm of some mild, elderly female relative—instead of rejoicing over lobster and Château-Yquem in Sucré’s white-and-gold restaurant.
“Monsieur is extraordinary,” says the maître d’hôtel, by way of flattery.
“Monsieur is a monster,” says the handsome lady book-keeper, shaking her diamond earrings.
And old le Roué the “Extraordinary,” old le Roué “the Monster,” smiles, winks a dim eye and laughs. But it has to be stated that his smile is a leer and that his laugh is a cackle.
From Sucré’s restaurant M. le Roué proceeds slowly, leaning heavily on his walking-stick, to a quiet, comfortable café, where he meets another heroic old rake—the Marquis de Mô.