She took Cartouche’s letter up and read it again, and a cry of joy came from her lips. Give the money to the soldiers’ fund! She remembered having heard Madame Bourcet and Louis speaking of this fund the night before. The Empress had gone in state, as Cartouche said, to make her splendid gift—and Lafitte’s banking-house was not fifteen minutes from where she was in the Rue de l’Echelle.
In a flash, Fifi saw she could do it. She had her white wig and outside of her door was the press in which Angéline kept her best black bonnet, black shawl and gown, in which any woman could look a hundred years old. Oh, it was the simplest thing in the world! The next day was Thursday, the morning Madame Bourcet always went out, and Angéline always stayed at home. It could be done within twenty-four hours!
Fifi danced about her room in rapture. It was now late in the afternoon; she could scarcely wait until the next day. How precious was her white wig to her then!
“Cartouche said I was silly to bring all these things with me,” she said to herself gleefully; “and I had to do it secretly—but see, how sensible I was! The fact is, I have a great deal of sense, and I know what is good for me, much better than Cartouche does, or the Bourcets, or the Emperor, or even the Holy Father. How do they know what is going on inside of my head? Only I know perfectly well. And to think that Cartouche should have suggested such a good way for me to get rid of the hateful money! What an advertisement it will be! Mademoiselle Chiaramonti, granddaughter of the Pope’s cousin, winner of the first prize in the grand lottery, and giving ninety thousand francs to the soldiers’ orphans! Mademoiselle Mars, at the Théâtre Française, never had half such an advertisement. She has only her art to advertise her! I shall be worth fifty francs the week to any manager in Paris. No doubt the high-priced theaters will try to get me, and all the people who think they know, like the Emperor and the Holy Father, would say I should go to a theater on the other side of the river. But I do not understand the style of acting at the high-priced theaters. I should be hissed. No. The cheap theaters for me, and the kings and queens and Roman consuls and things like that. Oh, Fifi, what a clever, clever creature you are!”
The happier Fifi was the more she loved to torment Louis Bourcet, and she was so very demonstrative that night, and made so many allusions to the bliss she expected to enjoy with him, that both Louis and Madame Bourcet were half distracted. But Fifi had such a lot of money—and was the granddaughter of the Holy Father’s cousin!
Next morning, Madame Bourcet, as usual, made ready to go to the lecture, at twelve o’clock. Fifi had never once proposed going out alone, and was at that moment engaged in needlework in her own room. Madame Bourcet, therefore, started off, without any misgivings, except the general gloom produced by the thought of either having Fifi in the family, or not having her.
Scarcely had Madame Bourcet’s respectable figure disappeared around the corner, before another figure equally respectable, and apparently a good deal older, emerged upon the street. It was Fifi, dressed in Angéline’s clothes, and with a green barége veil falling over her face. She knew how to limp as if she were seventy-five, instead of nineteen, and cleverly concealed her mouthful of beautiful white teeth. On her arm was a little covered basket which might have held eggs, but which really held nearly ninety thousand francs in thousand-franc notes.
Fifi knew the way to the banking-house of Lafitte perfectly well. It was then in a great gloomy building in the Rue St. Jacques. In less than fifteen minutes she was mounting the steps, and soon found herself in a large room, around which was an iron grating, and behind this grating were innumerable clerks at work.
Fifi went to the window nearest the door, and asked of a very alert-looking young clerk, at work at the desk:
“Will you be kind enough, Monsieur, to tell me where I can make a contribution to the fund for the soldiers’ orphans?”