“Y—yes,” replied Monsieur Bouchard, trying to assume a swashbuckler air. “You see, I don’t think the air of the Rue Clarisse agrees with me very well. I often had twinges of rheumatism there. Now, since I have been in the Rue Bassano, my joints feel about twenty-five years younger. In fact, I myself feel considerably younger—an increased vitality, so to speak. I am sorry to disoblige you, my dear Céleste, but for the sake of my health and other reasons I shall remain in my present quarters.”
Mademoiselle Bouchard, defeated, was speechless. Not so Élise. Walking up to Pierre, she seized him and bawled:
“No excuses about your health shall keep you from the Rue Clarisse. I promise you that you shall have a very different time there from your life in the Rue Bassano, turning night into day, running out here to the Pigeon House all the time and making a show and a scandal of yourself.”
“No, Élise,” firmly replied Pierre, who had much more real courage than his master, “I promised Mademoiselle Bouchard that I never would desert Monsieur Bouchard. If he remains in the midst of the dangers of the Rue Bassano he needs my protecting services more than ever. Although but a servant, I have a sense of honor. I cannot break my word.”
“Oh, you old hypocrite—” began Élise.
“Hypocrite, you may call me,” answered Pierre, folding his arms and turning up the whites of his eyes, “but liar and falsifier you cannot. Mademoiselle—” to Mademoiselle Bouchard—“I shall keep my word to you. As long as Monsieur Bouchard remains in the Rue Bassano I stay with him. He shall not face alone the dangers of that gay locale—those music halls, those theatres, those merry cafés, where all sorts of delicious, indigestible things are sold. His faithful Pierre shall be with him.”
Mademoiselle Bouchard realized she was beaten. So did Élise. They rose slowly. De Meneval ran into the next room, and bringing out a cage that held the redoubtable Pierrot, put it into Mademoiselle Bouchard’s hand.
“There, dear Aunt Céleste,” he cried, “is your consoler. I offered to buy him from the proprietor of the Pigeon House, but the man said he would give me the bird for nothing—in fact, he would pay to get rid of him. He was driving the customers of the Pigeon House away by his language.”
“At least,” said Mademoiselle Bouchard, solemnly, “if men are renegades, there is something of the same sex that is faithful and grateful. No doubt this poor bird is happy at escaping from the dissipated atmosphere of the Pigeon House to the sweet seclusion of the Rue Clarisse.”