“Oh,” said Cartaret, “I see! You are a consistent thief.”
This time Chitta’s nod was a proud one; but she pointed again to the other room and shook her head violently; then to herself and nodded once more. Words could not more plainly have said that, although she had been supplementing her provisions by petty thefts, her employer knew nothing about them.
And she must not be told. Again Chitta began to bob and moan and weep. She pointed across the hallway, put a finger to her lips, shook her old head and finally held out her clasped hands in supplication.
Cartaret emptied his pockets. He wished he had not been so extravagant as to buy that necktie. He handed to Chitta all the money left from the price that Fourget had paid him, to the last five-centime piece.
“Take this,” he said, “and be sure you don’t ever let your mistress know where it came from. I shan’t tell anybody about you. When you want more, come direct to me.” He knew that he could paint marketable pot-boilers now.
She wanted to kiss his hand, but he hurried from the woman and left her groveling behind him....
“M. Refrogné,” he said to the concierge, “I owe you an apology. I am sorry for the way I spoke to you a while ago. I have found those strawberries.”
“Bah!” said Refrogné. He added, when Cartaret had passed: “In his stomach, most likely.”
Slowly the horror of having had to use physical force against a woman left Cartaret. He started for a long walk and thought many things. He thought, as he trudged at last across L’Etoile, how the April starshine was turning the Arc de Triomphe to silver, and how the lovers on the benches at the junction of the rue Lauriston and the avenue Kléber made Napoleon’s arch in praise of war a monument to softer passions. He thought, as he strolled from the avenue d’Eylan and across the Place Victor Hugo, how the heart of that poet, whose statue here represented him as so much the politician, must grow warm when, as now, boys and girls passed arm in arm about the pediment. The night bore jonquils in her hands and wore a spray of wisteria in her hair. Brocaded ghosts of the old régime must be pacing a stately measure at Ranelagh, and all the elves of Spring were dancing in the Bois.
The Princess was poor. That brought her nearer to him: it gave him a chance to help her. Cartaret found it hard to be sorry that she was poor.