“I only inquired,” she said, “because this is the first time I have seen his handwriting.”
“Ma pauvre petite,” said Aristide.
“I will do whatever you tell me, M. Pujol,” said Fleurette, humbly.
“Good! That is talking like une bonne petite dame raisonnable. Now, I know a woman made up of holy bread whom St. Paul and St. Peter are fighting to have next them when she goes to Paradise. Her name is Mme. Bidoux, and she sells cabbages and asparagus and charcoal at No. 213 bis, Rue Saint-Honoré. She will arrange our little affair. Bocardon, will you have madame’s trunks sent to that address?”
He gave his arm to Fleurette, and walked out of the hotel, with serene confidence in the powers of the sainted Mme. Bidoux. Fleurette accompanied him unquestioningly. Of course she might have said: “If you hold negotiable security from my husband to the amount of four thousand francs, why should I exchange the comforts of the hotel for the doubtful accommodation of the sainted Mme. Bidoux who sells cabbages?” But I repeat that Fleurette was a simple soul who took for granted the wisdom of so flamboyant and virile a creature as Aristide Pujol.
Away up at the top of No. 213 bis, Rue Saint-Honoré, was a little furnished room to let, and there Aristide installed his sacred charge. Mme. Bidoux, who, as she herself maintained, would have cut herself into four pieces for Aristide—did he not save her dog’s life? Did he not marry her daughter to the brigadier of gendarmes (sale voyou!), who would otherwise have left her lamenting? Was he not the most wonderful of God’s creatures?—Mme. Bidoux, although not quite appreciating Aristide’s quixotic delicacy, took the forlorn and fragile wisp of misery to her capacious bosom. She made her free of the cabbages and charcoal. She provided her, at a risible charge, with succulent meals. She told her tales of her father and mother, of her neighbours, of the domestic differences between the concierge and his wife (soothing idyll for an Ariadne!), of the dirty thief of a brigadier of gendarmes, of her bodily ailments—her body was so large that they were many; of the picturesque death, through apoplexy, of the late M. Bidoux; the brave woman, in short, gave her of her heart’s best. As far as human hearts could provide a bed for Fleurette, that bed was of roses. As a matter of brutal fact, it was narrow and nubbly, and the little uncarpeted room was ten feet by seven; but to provide it Aristide went to his own bed hungry. And if the bed of a man’s hunger is not to be accounted as one of roses, there ought to be a vote for the reduction of the Recording Angel’s salary.
It must not be imagined that Fleurette thought the bed hard. Her bed of life from childhood had been nubbly. She never dreamed of complaining of her little room under the stars, and she sat among the cabbages like a tired lily, quite contented with her material lot. But she drooped and drooped, and the cough returned and shook her; and Aristide, realizing the sacredness of his charge, became a prey to anxious terrors.
“Mère Bidoux,” said he, “she must have lots of good, nourishing, tender, underdone beef, good fillets, and entrecôtes saignantes.”
Mme. Bidoux sighed. She had a heart, but she also had a pocket which, like Aristide’s, was not over-filled. “That costs dear, my poor friend,” she said.
“What does it matter what it costs? It is I who provide,” said Aristide, grandly.