“And when are you going to get the huts?” said Barbe, looking straight into Bibi’s eyes.
That was what she wanted to know—how much solidity there was behind this man’s march-music.
“I am going to Amiens to-morrow to see a contractor, and I expect to meet my friend who handles the money.”
“How exciting! And you will come back and tell me all about it?”
“You can bet on that,” said Bibi.
He was building hotels in the clouds to impress the red-haired girl and to encourage his own conceit. Boasting was Bibi’s food of the gods; and, when he had rolled a procession of fine words off his tongue, he began to believe that everything would be as he said it was. And yet there was a streak of cunning in all his vanity. He advertised his visit to Amiens, let all Ste. Claire know about it, because it was possible that he might wish people to think him in Amiens when he might be somewhere else. The contractor who had army huts to sell was a creature of the imagination, and even Bibi’s financial friend had begun to show an inconvenient cautiousness.
But he went to Amiens, walking to Boves with a little black bag in his hand, and taking the train from Boves to Amiens. He put up at a cheap hotel in the quarter north of the cathedral, and spent a day visiting certain agencies, a firm of builders, and an official at the hôtel de ville. Nobody seemed to know anything; there was a shrugging of shoulders, a suggestion that everything was waiting for the people at Paris. Monsieur Clemenceau, it was said, had made some sort of promise, and the Tiger was a man of his word. The builder whom Bibi visited hinted that he might be able to obtain one big hut, but it would cost Bibi forty thousand francs, and the price did not include charges for transport and re-erection.
“It is necessary to pay through the nose,” said the gentleman with brutal candour.
Bibi spat and went out denouncing profiteers. What was a soldier of the Republic to do with such wolves ready to tear the wool off a sheep’s back?
He fell into a rage, and could think of nothing but of Manon Latour and the way Brent had managed to baulk him. Bibi was always a man of one idea, one passion. Since his scheme for capturing and exploiting Beaucourt seemed in the air, its place was taken by an animal hatred of Paul and a desire to humiliate Manon. Louis Blanc had something of the mentality of a madman whose whole strength can be concentrated upon one definite and violent act. His power of self-expression was purely physical. He had the cunning of a savage, but very little self-control. It is difficult for decent people to understand how certain crimes are committed. Appetite will explain many of them, appetites that flush with hot blood those baser centres of a brain that have not received the living impress of social self-consciousness.