Jean informed Margot quite comfortably that a little went a long way, but he took for granted that he should have a little. A line, he felt, must be drawn somewhere, a D’Ucelles could hardly starve; and he was very cheerful and quite funny about it to Margot. Margot, however, took matters very seriously; she didn’t seem to think that lines are drawn anywhere, or that there was anything essentially amusing in a D’Ucelles without an overcoat.
She merely bought Jean a winter overcoat for a Christmas present. Jean almost quarrelled with her on the subject; but Margot cried, and said he couldn’t really be her friend unless he took it; so eventually they went to early Mass together, and Jean wore the overcoat.
Then Jean got a job as guide to a large and ignorant English family, who took an absorbing interest in the relics of Napoleon. While they remained in Paris nothing further went to ma Tante and Jean paid his board regularly.
Unfortunately even Napoleon can be exhausted in time, and having exhausted him, the English family returned reluctantly to Birmingham, and Jean found himself explaining to Margot that he was too busy to come in for meals; in the future he would take them out. Margot knew perfectly well what that meant, and she arranged a sly system of goûters and early cups of coffee, which he found it almost impossible to evade.
Liane had kept her word to Margot; she had used the whole power of a popular and unscrupulous woman to destroy every chance she had made for Jean. None of her friends would look at the little musician any more. As for Maurice Golaud, he stated frankly that if he saw the fellow again it would come to swords, and as everyone knew how shockingly badly Maurice fenced, this was felt to prove how atrociously Liane’s little musician must have behaved. Still, of course, everyone wished that he would meet Golaud.
It occurred to Margot once to mention very timidly the fine uncle of the motor and the fur overcoat, as a possible source of supply, but when Jean said that he would rather settle the question with the Seine she dropped the subject.
“After all,” Jean would sometimes say carelessly, “look what a time it gives me for your voice; it would be almost a pity, chérie, to take up anything else just now!”
It was true Margot did wonders with her new singing master; he put his whole soul into Margot’s voice, he polished it like a careful jeweller polishes his favourite jewel.
He thought and planned for it as he wandered to and fro, looking for work, and found whatever warm corners there are to be found for shabby vagrants in Paris. The Parc Monceaux was peculiarly given up to Margot’s middle notes; he wanted them to be the best of all.
Every evening he took her to the theatre and waited for her to come out; fortunately Margot never knew that one of the things Jean did while he was waiting was to find cabs for that class of society who do not find things easily for themselves. On one occasion Jean was so fortunate as to find his Uncle Romain a vehicle, for which service that unconscious gentleman rewarded him with a franc, the only assistance at this time that Jean received from his relatives.