“No!” bawled Louis, for once forgetting to be correct in manner and deportment. Then, rising to his feet, and staggering to the door, he said in a sepulchral voice: “Everything is over between us. If the Holy Father takes measures to make me fulfil my compact to marry you, I shall leave France—I shall flee my country. Mademoiselle, permit me to say you are an impossible person. Adieu forever, I hope!” With this he was gone.
Madame Bourcet at this recovered enough to scream to Angéline, in a rapid crescendo:
“Get a van—get a van—GET A VAN!”
Fifi knew perfectly well what that meant, and was in ecstasies. She flew to her room, huddled her belongings together, saying to herself:
“Cartouche, I shall see you! And, Cartouche, I love you! And, Cartouche, I shall make you marry me—me, your own Fifi!”
In a little while the van was at the door and Fifi’s boxes were piled in. She threw to Angéline the odious brown gown, with the green spots, and a ten-franc piece besides—which somewhat mollified Angéline, without changing her opinion that Fifi was a dangerous and explosive person to have about. She promised to send for the blue satin bed. Then Fifi, reverting to her old natural self, climbed into the van along with her boxes, and jolted off, in the direction of the street of the Black Cat, and was happier than she had yet been since she had left it.
CHAPTER IX
BACK TO THE BLACK CAT
About three o’clock in the afternoon, the van, containing Fifi and her wardrobe, drew up before the tall old house in the street of the Black Cat where she had lived ever since she was a little, black-eyed child, who still cried for her mother, and who would not be comforted except upon Cartouche’s knee. How familiar, how actual, how delightfully redolent of home was the narrow little street! Fifi saw it in her mind’s eye long before she reached it, and in her gladness of heart sang snatches of songs like the one Toto thought was made for him, Le petit mousse noir. As the van clattered into the street, Fifi, sitting on her boxes, craned her neck out to watch a certain garret window, and from thence she heard two short, rapturous barks. It was Toto. Fifi, jumping down, opened the house door, and ran headlong up the dark, narrow well-known stair. Half way up, she met Toto, jumping down the steps two at a time. Fifi caught him to her heart, and wept plentifully, tears of joy.
But there was some one else to see—and that was Cartouche, who was always in his room at that hour.
“Now, Toto,” said Fifi, as she slipped softly up the stairs, still squeezing him, “I am about to make a formal offer of my hand to Cartouche; and mind, you are not to interrupt me with barking and whining and scratching. It is very awkward to be interrupted on such occasions, and you must behave yourself suitably to the situation.”