"Bien! She convinced him. For the rest of the day the place was in a state of frenzy. Never before had such a repast been seen in its kitchen, never before had he cooked with such loving care, even when he had been preparing a dinner of ceremony on the boulevard Haussmann. Madame herself ran out to arrange for the piano. The floor was swept. The waiter was put into a clean shirt. Dupont shed tears of excitement in his saucepans.
"He served the two-franc dinner that evening with eyes that watched nothing but the clock. All his consciousness now was absorbed by the question whether the dancer would come or not. The dinner passed somehow—it is to be assumed that the customers grumbled, but in his suspense Dupont regarded them with indifference. The hours crept by. It was a quarter to twelve—twelve o'clock. He trembled behind the counter as if with ague. Now it was time that she was here! His face was blanched, his teeth chattered in his head. What if he had been hoaxed after all? Half-past twelve! The sweat ran down him. Terror gripped his heart. A vision of all the partridges wasted convulsed his soul. Hark! a carriage stopped. He tottered forward. The door opened— she had come!
"Women are strange. Little-Flower-of-the-Wood, who yawned her pretty head off at Armenonville, was enraptured with the Bon Vieux Temps. The rest of the party took their tone from her, and everything was pronounced 'fun,' the coarse linen, the dirty ceiling, the admiring stares of the bock-drinkers. The lady herself declared that she had 'never enjoyed a supper so much in her life,' and the waiter—it was not Adolphe then—was dumfounded by a louis tip.
"Figure yourself the exultation of madame! 'Ah,' she chuckled, when they shut up shop at sunrise, 'what did I tell you, my little cabbage?' Monsieur, as an editor, will have observed that a woman who reveals astounding force in an emergency may triumph pettily when the emergency is over?
"'It remains to be seen whether they will come any more, however,' said Dupont. 'Let us go to bed. Mon Dieu, how sleepy I am!' It was the first occasion that the Bon Vieux Temps had been open after two o'clock in the morning.
"It was the first occasion, and for some days they feared it might be the last. But no, the dancer came again! A few eccentrics who came with her flattered themselves on having made a 'discovery.' They boasted of it. Gradually the name of the Bon Vieux Temps became known. By the time that Little-Flower-of-the-Wood had had enough, there was a supper clientèle without her. Folly is infectious, and in Paris there are always people catching a fresh craze. Dupont began to put up his prices, and levied a charge on the waiter for the privilege of waiting at supper. The rest of the history is more grave … Comment, monsieur? Since you insist—again an absinthe!"
Janiaud paused, and ran his dirty fingers through his hair.
"This man can talk!" said the Editor, in an undertone.
"Gentlemen," resumed the poet, "two years passed. Little-Flower-of-the- Wood was on the Italian Riviera. The Italian Riviera was awake again after the heat of the summer—the little town that had dozed for many months began to stir. Almost every day now she saw new faces on the promenade; the sky was gentler, the sea was fairer. And she sat loathing it all, craving to escape from it to the bleak streets of Paris.
"Two winters before, she had been told, 'Your lungs will stand no more of the pranks you have been playing. You must go South, and keep early hours, or—' The shrug said the rest. And she had sold some of her diamonds and obeyed. Of course, it was an awful nuisance, but she must put up with it for a winter in order to get well. As soon as she was well, she would go back, and take another engagement. She had promised herself to be dancing again by May.