If Aristide Pujol had the rapturous idea of proving the innocence of Mme. Zette, triumphing over the fat pig of a husband, and eventually, in a fantastic fashion, carrying off the insulted and spotless lady to some bower of delight (the castle in Perpignan—why not?), you must blame, not him, but Provence, whose sons, if not devout, are frankly pagan. Sometimes they are both.
M. Bocardon sat in his bureau, pretending to do accounts and tracing columns of figures with a huge, trembling forefinger. He looked the picture of woe. Aristide decided to bide his opportunity. He went out into the streets again, now with the object of killing time. The afternoon had advanced, and trees and buildings cast cool shadows in which one could walk with comfort; and Nîmes, clear, bright city of wide avenues and broad open spaces, instinct too with the grandeur that was Rome’s, is an idler’s Paradise. Aristide knew it well; but he never tired of it. He wandered round the Maison Carrée, his responsive nature delighting in the splendour of the Temple, with its fluted Corinthian columns, its noble entablature, its massive pediment, its perfect proportions; reluctantly turned down the Boulevard Victor Hugo, past the Lycée and the Bourse, made the circuit of the mighty, double-arched oval of the Arena, and then retraced his steps. As he expected, M. Bocardon had left the bureau. It was the hour of absinthe. The porter named M. Bocardon’s habitual café. There, in a morose corner of the terrace, Aristide found the huge man gloomily contemplating an absurdly small glass of the bitters known as Dubonnet. Aristide raised his hat, asked permission to join him, and sat down.
“M. Bocardon,” said he, carefully mixing the absinthe which he had ordered, “I learn from my fair cousin that there is between you a regrettable misunderstanding, for which I am sincerely sorry.”
“She calls it a misunderstanding?” He laughed mirthlessly. “Women have their own vocabulary. Listen, my good sir. There is infamy between us. When a wife betrays a man like me—kind, indulgent, trustful, who has worshipped the ground she treads on—it is not a question of misunderstanding. It is infamy. If she had anywhere to lay her head, I would turn her out of doors to-night. But she has not. You, who are her relative, know I married her without a dowry. You alone of her family survive.”
It was on the tip of Aristide’s impulsive tongue to say that he would be only too willing to shelter her, but prudently he refrained.
“She has broken my heart,” continued Bocardon.
Aristide asked for details of the unhappy affair. The large man hesitated for a moment and glanced suspiciously at his companion; but, fascinated by the clear, luminous eyes, he launched with Southern violence into a whirling story. The villain was a traveller in buttons—buttons! To be wronged by a traveller in diamonds might have its compensations—but buttons! Linen buttons, bone buttons, brass buttons, trouser buttons! To be a traveller in the inanity of buttonholes was the only lower degradation. His name was Bondon—he uttered it scathingly, as if to decline from a Bocardon to a Bondon was unthinkable. This Bondon was a regular client of the hotel, and such a client!—who never ordered a bottle of vin cacheté or coffee or cognac. A contemptible creature. For a long time he had his suspicions. Now he was certain. He tossed off his glass of Dubonnet, ordered another, and spoke incoherently of the opening and shutting of doors, whisperings, of a dreadful incident, the central fact of which was a glimpse of Zette gliding wraith-like down a corridor. Lastly, there was the culminating proof, a letter found that morning in Zette’s room. He drew a crumpled sheet from his pocket and handed it to Aristide.
“the villain was a traveller in buttons—buttons!”
It was a crude, flaming, reprehensible, and entirely damning epistle. Aristide turned cold, shivering at the idea of the superb and dainty Zette coming in contact with such abomination. He hated Bondon with a murderous hate. He drank a great gulp of absinthe and wished it were Bondon’s blood. Great tears rolled down Bocardon’s face, and gathering at the ends of his scrubby moustache dripped in splashes on the marble table.