“And his Majesty,” replied Fifi gravely. “Who would think, to see us supping on pork chops and onions, that our marriage concerned such very great people!”
Cartouche went to his garret presently, still drowned in perplexities, but with a wild feeling of rapture that seemed to make a new heaven and a new earth for him.
Fifi, next morning, proceeded to lay out her plans. She did not go near the theater until the afternoon. Then she put on her yellow and purple brocade, her large red and green satin cloak, her huge hat and feathers and reinforced with the alleged diamond brooch, and sending out for a cab, ordered it to carry her and her magnificence across the street to the manager’s private office.
Duvernet, thinking Fifi had come to her senses, and would ask, instead of demanding, her place back, received her coolly. Fifi was charmingly affable.
“I only called to ask, Monsieur,” she said, “if you could tell me how to catch the diligence which goes out to Fontainebleau. I wish to go out to see his Holiness, who, as you know, is my relative, and as such, I desire his formal consent to my marriage to Cartouche.”
Fifi was careful not to say that she was the Pope’s relative; the Pope was her relative.
Duvernet, somewhat disconcerted by Fifi’s superb air, replied that the diligence passed the corner, two streets below, at nine in the morning, and one in the afternoon.
“Thank you,” responded Fifi. “I shall go out, to-morrow, at one o’clock. I could not think of getting up at the unearthly hour necessary to take the morning diligence. And can you tell me, Monsieur, about the omnibus that passes the Tuileries? The Emperor has had a request printed in the Moniteur, asking that the lady who made the gift of ninety thousand francs to the soldiers’ orphans should declare herself—and I have no objection to going in the omnibus as far as the gates of the Tuileries. Then, I shall get a carriage.”
Duvernet was so thunderstruck at Fifi’s grandeur, that he mumbled something quite unintelligible about the omnibus. Fifi, however, was perfectly well acquainted with the ways both of the omnibus and diligence, and only inquired about them to impress upon Duvernet the immense gulf between the Fifi of yesterday and the Mademoiselle Chiaramonti of to-day. She finally rose and sailed off, but returned to ask the amazed and disgusted Duvernet to get her a cab to take her across the street.
“I can walk, Monsieur,” she said condescendingly, “except that I am afraid of ruining my clothes. I carry on my back nearly four thousand francs’ worth of clothes.”