And then a great melodious deep-toned bell in a neighboring church began its chiming, solemn and glorious, proclaiming that Christmas Day was at hand, and Fifi, falling on her knees, as her mother had taught her long years ago, in Italy, thanked God for giving her Cartouche, and Toto, and the red cloak lined with flannel.
She forgot all about the lottery ticket.
CHAPTER III
THE GRAND PRIZE
For the first fortnight of the new year, things went swimmingly at the Imperial Theater, and several times the nightly receipts were over three hundred francs. Duvernet wrote and produced a new play, in which he took the part of Alexander the Great; and it was a screaming success. Fifi as Queen Roxana was simply stunning, wearing her alleged diamond brooch in a tiara made by her own hands, of beautiful glass beads. The merry war between Julie Campionet and herself went on as noisily as ever, but there was more noise than malignity about it. When Julie was ill with a cold, Fifi went and cooked Julie’s dinner for her; and when Fifi needed a scepter for her part of Queen Roxana, Julie Campionet sent her a very nice parasol handle with a glass knob at the top which made a lovely scepter.
But they did not, for these trifles, deny themselves the pleasure of quarreling, and Duvernet was treated about once a week to a threat from each of them that if her rival were not immediately discharged, the complainant would at once resign. Duvernet received these threats with secret satisfaction, because, as he explained to Cartouche, as long as the war was actively prosecuted, Julie Campionet did not have time to make a serious demonstration against him.
“But if ever they are reconciled,” he confided gloomily to Cartouche, “the Campionet woman will marry me in a week.”
As for Cartouche, he attended strictly to his business at the theater, but his mind was so much taken up with certain possibilities of the future that he did not keep the faithful watch over Duvernet which the manager considered as his safeguard. Cartouche was even so inconsiderate as to let Julie Campionet get into the manager’s private office more than once, and remain there alone with him for at least five minutes, without interrupting the tête-à-tête.
It was the lottery ticket which in some way grievously disturbed Cartouche’s mind. Suppose Fifi should win a prize? And from that supposing, came a kind of superstitious conviction that number 1313 would win a prize. He found himself, without his own volition, figuring upon what should be done with the money, so as to enure to the greatest benefit of Fifi.
“If it is a twenty-franc prize she draws, she must have a pair of new shoes, and some good stockings”—he thought, for Cartouche knew intimately the condition of Fifi’s wardrobe. “If it is as much as fifty francs, the shoes and stockings must wait—it won’t do to fool away such a sum as fifty francs; it must be put aside for a rainy day, for Fifi, in the tin box in the cranny of the chimney”—where Cartouche was beginning to save up also for a rainy day, for Fifi. If it were five hundred francs—or possibly a thousand—Cartouche lost his breath in contemplation of the catastrophe. In that case, Fifi would have a dot, but whom would she marry? She knew no one but the men about the theater, and Cartouche did not consider any of them a match for Fifi; but perhaps he was prejudiced. She might, it is true, with five hundred francs to her dowry, marry a tradesman; but how would Fifi get on with a tradesman?
Altogether, it was the most puzzling proposition Cartouche had ever struggled with, and he began to wish the fateful day were over, and that these strange dreams and hopes and fears about Fifi and the lottery ticket would vanish like shapes in a mist, and leave him in peace.