“What do you say?” cried the lady, sharply.
“It may arrive or it may not arrive; but you are rich enough, chère amie, not to think of a few camisoles and bits of jewellery.”
“And my lace and my silk dress that I have brought to show your parents. Merci!” she retorted, with a dangerous spark in her little eyes. “You think one is made of money, eh? You will soon find yourself mistaken, my friend. I would give you to understand——”. She checked herself suddenly. “Monseigneur”—she turned to me with a resumption of the gracious manner of her bottle-decked counter at the Café de l’Univers—“you are too amiable. I appreciate your offer infinitely; but I am not going to entrust my luggage to the kind care of the railway company. Merci, non. They are robbers and thieves. Even if it did arrive, half the things would be stolen. Oh, I know them.”
She shook the head of an experienced and self-reliant woman. No doubt, distrustful of banks as of railway companies, she kept her money hidden in her bedroom. I pitied my poor young friend; he would need all his gaiety to enliven the domestic side of the Café de l’Univers.
The lady having declined my invitation, I expressed my regrets; and Aristide, more emotional, voiced his sense of heart-rent desolation, and in a resigned tone informed me that it was time to start. I left the lovers and went to the hotel, where I paid the bill, summoned McKeogh, and lit a companionable pipe.
The car backed down the narrow street into the square and took up its position. We entered. McKeogh took charge of Aristide’s valise, tucked us up in the rug, and settled himself in his seat. The car started and we drove off, Aristide gallantly brandishing his hat and Mme. Gougasse waving her lily hand, which happened to be hidden in an ill-fitting black glove.
“To Montpellier, as fast as you can!” he shouted at the top of his lungs to McKeogh. Then he sighed as he threw himself luxuriously back. “Ah, this is better than a train. Amélie doesn’t know what a mistake she has made!”
The elderly victim of my furious entry was lounging, in spite of the mistral, by the grim machicolated gateway. Instead of scowling at me he raised his hat respectfully as we passed. I touched my cap, but Aristide returned the salute with the grave politeness of royalty.
“This is a place,” said he, “which I would like never to behold again.”
In a few moments we were whirling along the straight, white road between the interminable black vineyards, and past the dilapidated homesteads of the vine-folk and wayside cafés that are scattered about this unjoyous corner of France.