“I always do things well,” said Barbe, with an insolent lift of the chin. “I have ideas, you know, like a man.”
Bibi looked up at her with eyes half closed. He had talked a good deal to Barbe of the Coq d’Or. She stimulated him. She was a clever girl, provocative, the sort of woman who was Bibi’s natural partner, a woman who could seize things with her claws. And Louis Blanc’s mentality was such that when the gas was out of an enterprise and his conceit somewhat deflated, he needed a woman like Barbe, a glass of absinthe, and a mouthful of rolling words.
He had boasted to Barbe of all that he meant to do in Beaucourt, how he was going to call his hotel the “Champ de Bataille,” and make a fortune out of American tourists, nor in Bibi’s vision were the people of Beaucourt forgotten. Army food bought cheaply and retailed at an immense profit seemed a mere question of shrewd foresight. Barbe had encouraged Bibi to talk, perhaps because he piqued the tigress in her, and she was bored with tame men. Mademoiselle was greedy and ambitious, and the Coq d’Or afforded a girl no scope.
“That old busybody of a Durand is going to be a nuisance to you,” she said.
Bibi jerked his shoulders. He had always posed before the red-haired girl as a devil of a fellow, a man who always got his own way.
“Durand! A talker, that’s all. Give me a little of this stuff in Beaucourt,” and he tapped the glass with a finger-nail, “and we will explode Anatole like a paper bag. Meanwhile, I have somebody else to settle with. When people get in my way, I push.”
Barbe nodded her head.
“That was a dirty trick, knocking down that chimney of yours.”
“I haven’t squared the account yet.”
“I thought you were rather fond of Manon Latour,” said the red-haired girl.