“Has anybody ever told you that you were extremely impudent, M. le Bourgeois, as you call yourself?”
“Occasionally,” replied François. “Here, waiter.” The waiter came from a distance. “Take this chicken away,” said François,—“it was hatched during the First Empire, I think,—and bring us one that isn’t old enough for military service.”
The Marquis rambled on, admiring and cursing Diane all through the supper.
When François got home an hour later and passed Diane’s door, he saw a thread of light under it, and the door opened gently, showing Diane’s pale, dispirited face. She knew well enough where François had been; nobody except the Marquis had so far asked him to supper.
“Yes,” said François in a whisper, answering the question in poor Diane’s eyes, “I have been to supper with him. It always raises me in my own esteem, for I see that I, François le Bourgeois, born in a chateau, and now juggler and acrobat when I am sober enough, am a far more respectable character than the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel; he has no more brains than my shoe, and is the handsomest young officer I ever saw. I am ashamed of him as a relative.”
Diane slammed the door angrily in François’ face.
The days and the weeks crept on, and the performances in the ex-furniture shop maintained and even increased their popularity. Diane could have had supper every evening with an officer or with a young advocate or any of the gay dogs who are found in every town, but Diane, being a shrewd little person, concluded that it was worth more as an advertisement to decline these offers than to accept them. Soon it became the subject of numerous wagers among the gilded youth of Bienville as to who should first have the triumph of entertaining Diane at supper. Presently the wagers were changed; it was a question whether any of them could succeed in this commendable project.
This sudden popularity of Diane by no means weakened the devotion of the Marquis de St. Angel. She still turned an unseeing eye and a deaf ear toward him, although her heart beat wildly and her pulses were racing. One person profited by this—François. He could get supper at any time out of the Marquis by merely telling about Diane, and especially of the notes and letters she received, and even the presents which she haughtily returned. The Marquis continued to pursue her and to damn her for an affected prude and subtle advertiser, and not half as handsome as a plenty of other ladies in her profession who were not so obdurate.
Grandin at first bitterly reproached Diane for not encouraging the Marquis and the other young bloods, but in the course of time he came around to her opinion.
“It’s much better advertising,” said Diane. “If I should go out to supper with one of these young gentlemen, the box office receipts would fall off fifty francs at least. And think, Grandin, how nice it is for you to have all these people following us and looking at you because you are my manager.”