The clerk, who for some reason he has never fully understood was under the impression that this was the family name of the Prince of Monaco or perhaps the King of Spain, and murmured, “Oh, I demand a thousand pardons, sir,” has never been able to explain this affair to the complete satisfaction of the proprietor.
For, before the clerk could recover, Ventrillon had left the shop and, having dashed impudently past the ticket puncher, was well on his way in the Métro, wearing the hat of eight reflections. In the dark tunnel he could see his image facing him in the windows of the lighted car.
“Undoubtedly,” reflected Ventrillon, adjusting his lapels, “it is the final touch which is vital.”
ANOTHER REFLECTION
When a handsome young man commits a murder, forges a check, or sets his heart upon a hat of eight reflections, one may well say to oneself, “It is a woman.” And a woman it was; but it was Mme. Sutrin.
A work of art, upon obtaining a public success, however slight, becomes forthwith an irresistible magnet to its maker. Though every day had seen Ventrillon setting out to walk in the opposite direction, every day had found him at last somewhere in the neighbourhood of his prize-winning canvas in the Grand Palais.
It was there that he was discovered by Eugène Savillhac, an acquaintance who since his success had become his friend. In that portion of society smarter than good Savillhac was one of those hangers-on who boost their own stock by boosting the stock of others. It appeared, incredibly, that every one of the hundreds he knew was the most extraordinary person in Paris.
“Ah, there you are, mon vieux!” he cried. “What luck! The youngest prize winner of the spring Salon and the most extraordinary woman in Paris are under the same roof. It is the first duty of a celebrity to be known by Madame Sutrin.”
He indicated a large woman in black silk whose plain skirt, neither full enough to be picturesque nor scant enough to be fashionable, swayed like a peasant’s from side to side as she waddled briskly through the crowd. Before her marriage to Timoléon Sutrin, the rich sugar industrial, she had been the beautiful Simone d’Estray of the Opéra Comique; but her beauty had been of that drastic sort which perfectly represents the triumph of feminine mind over matter, and after her marriage, with her future secure, she had comfortably allowed herself to become what nature had always intended her to be—very fat and very ugly. But she had the faculty of retaining all her old friends and quickly making new ones, and her flamboyant hôtel in the Avenue Victor Hugo was continually the scene of brilliant though somewhat dubious gatherings of boulevard celebrities, leavened with a scattering of those persons of real distinction who find delight in such society.
“Come, and I shall present you,” said Savillhac, and darted across the space, Ventrillon unenthusiastically trailing.