“Whoosh!” cried Cartouche, “the Holy Father, brought to Paris by his Imperial Majesty the Emperor Napoleon, is surprised at first sight into so much affection for Mademoiselle Fifi, leading lady at the Imperial Theater, that he means to adopt her, give her a title, make her a countess or I don’t know what, and leave her a million of francs.”
Fifi, at this, turned her shapely, girlish back on the presumptuous Cartouche, while there was a little movement of silent laughter on the part of the three persons who had remained in the little dark street, after the passing of the Pope’s traveling equipage.
Cartouche had not for a moment forgotten the face of the one he recognized so instantly, but seeing them keeping in the shadow, and having, himself, the soul of a gentleman, forbore to look toward them, and proceeded to get Fifi out of the way.
“Come now,” said he. “It is time for me to go to the theater, and you promised me you would sew up the holes in Duvernet’s toga before the performance begins. It split last night in the middle of his death scene, and I thought the whole act was gone, and I have not had time to-day to get him a new toga; so run along.”
Fifi, for once angry with Cartouche, struck an attitude she had seen in a picture of Mademoiselle Mars as Medea.
“I go,” she cried, in Medea’s tragic tone on leaving Jason, “but I shall tell Monsieur Duvernet how you treat his leading lady.”
And with that she stalked majestically across the street and disappeared in the darkness.
One of the group of persons came up to Cartouche and touched him on the shoulder. It was the one, at sight of whom Cartouche had started. In spite of his enveloping cloak, and a hat that concealed much of his face, Cartouche knew him.
“Who is that pretty young lady with whom you have been quarreling?” he asked.
“That, your Majesty,” replied Cartouche, “is Mademoiselle Fifi, a very good, respectable little girl who has just been made leading lady at Monsieur Duvernet’s theater across the way.”