From behind a portière which fell across the end of the room came a woman, tall, pale, and with a peculiar air of distinction about her. Perhaps it was her very unusual pallor which so distinguished her for there was nothing absolutely fine or handsome about the countenance. It was a weak face I thought, with an ugly red mark over the upper lip, and had she not been so very pale and so exceptionally well-dressed I should not have looked at her twice. She wore a gown of black silk, dead-black, lustrous, and fitting her slender figure to perfection. It was cut square and low in the front and fell away in long folds upon the floor at the back. What an apparition she made in the midst of this noisy crowd, smoking, chatting, swearing, laughing! Especially so when I noticed that as she walked very slowly down between the tables, her lips were moving nervously and her hands clutching at her beautiful dress. As for her eyes, they were everywhere in an instant.
“'Tis Félicité. You are fortunate,” murmured De Kock. “And she is a little worse than usual.”
“What is it?” I demanded. “Drink?” “Hush-sh-sh! Mon cher, you are stupid. It is jealousy, jealousy, my friend, with perhaps an occasional over-dose of chloral. Chloral is the favorite prescription now-a-days, you must remember that. But jealousy will do, jealousy will do. It will accomplish a great deal, will jealousy; will destroy more, mark that! I hope she will be quiet to-night for your sake.”
“Is she violent?” I asked.
“Poor thing, yes. When she finds him now with that creature inside his coat; she will wring her hands and denounce him and threaten to kill it—I wonder she doesn't—then her husband will march her off behind the curtain and he will make love to the parrot again.” Precisely what happened. The lady soon found her husband, raised her hands tragically and broke out into excited French that was liberally sprinkled with oaths both English and French. The mania was asserting itself, the propensity overcoming her. It was a sad and at the same time an amusing scene, for one could not help smiling at Giuseppe's fat unconcern as he kept his wife off at arms' length, while all the time the parrot inside his coat was shrieking in muffled tones “And for goodness sake don't say I told you!”
Finally Madame succumbed and was taken behind the curtain in a dishevelled and hysterical condition which increased De Kock's pity for her. We paid the waiter—or rather De Kock did—and left, not seeing Giuseppe again to speak to, though he came in and removed the parrot, cage and all.
It was a lovely night outside, and I suggested sitting for a time in Union Square. Finding an unoccupied bench, we each made ourselves happy with a good cigar and watched the exquisite shadows of the trees above as thrown by the electric light on the pavement.
“Wonderful effect!” remarked my friends. “How did you enjoy your dinner? That was a dinner, eh, and no mistake; rather have had it without the 'episode'? Oh! I don't know; you literary fellows must come in for that sort of thing as well as the rest of the world; I should think it would just suit you. Put them—the three of them—Monsieur, Madame and the Pea-Green Parrot—into a book, or better still, on the stage. There's your title ready for you too.”
I was just thinking of the same thing.
“They are undoubtedly originals, both of them—all three,” said I, “but as far as I have seen them, there is hardly enough to go upon.”