Then Aristide went about with a great heartache. Fleurette would die; she would never see the man she loved again. What would he say when he returned and learned the tragic story? He would not even know that Aristide, loving her, had been loyal to him. When the Director of the Agence Pujol personally conducted the clients of the Hôtel du Soleil et de l’Ecosse to the Grand Trianon and pointed out the bed of the Empress Josephine he nearly broke down.
“What is the Empress doing now?”
What was Fleurette doing now? Going to join the Empress in the world of shadows.
The tourists talked after the manner of their kind.
“She must have found the bed very hard, poor dear.”
“Give me an iron bedstead and a good old spring mattress.”
“Ah, but, my dear sir, you forget. The Empress’s bed was slung on the back of tame panthers which Napoleon brought from Egypt.”
It was hard to jest convincingly to the knickerbockered with death in one’s soul.
“Most belovèd little Flower,” ran the last letter that Fleurette received, “I have just had a cable from Aristide saying that you are very ill. I will come to you as soon as I can. Ces petits yeux de pervenche—I am learning your language here, you see—haunt me day and night ...” etcetera, etcetera.
Aristide went up to her room with a great bunch of chrysanthemums. The letter peeped from under the pillow. Fleurette was very weak. Mme. Bidoux, who, during Fleurette’s illness, had allowed her green grocery business to be personally conducted to the deuce by a youth of sixteen very much in love with the lady who sold sausages and other charcuterie next door, had spread out the fortune-telling cards on the bed and was prophesying mendaciously. Fleurette took the flowers and clasped them to her bosom.