Something comical must have happened at this moment, which Mme.
Zelie Cadelle said nothing about; for she was laughing most heartily, - a frank and sonorous laughter.
"Then," she resumed, "he begins at once to explain that I remind him of a person whom he loved tenderly, and whom he has just had the misfortune to lose, adding, that he would deem himself the happiest of men if I would allow him to take care of me, and insure me a brilliant position."
"You see! That rascally Vincent!" said M. de Tregars, just to be saying something.
Mme. Zelie shook her head.
"You know him," she resumed. "He is not young; he is not handsome; he is not funny. I did not fancy him one bit; and, if I had only known where to find shelter for the night, I'd soon have sent him to the old Nick, - him and his brilliant position. But, not having enough money to buy myself a penny-loaf, it wasn't the time to put on any airs. So I tell him that I accept. He goes for a cab; we get into it; and he brings me right straight here."
Positively M. de Tregars required his entire self-control to conceal the intensity of his curiosity.
"Was this house, then, already as it is now?" he interrogated.
"Precisely, except that there were no servants in it, except the chambermaid Amanda, who is M. Favoral's confidante. All the others had been dismissed; and it was a hostler from a stable near by who came to take care of the horses."
"And what then?"
"Then you may imagine what I looked like in the midst of all this magnificence, with my old shoes and my fourpenny skirt. Something like a grease-spot on a satin dress. M. Vincent seemed delighted, nevertheless. He had sent Amanda out to get me some under-clothing and a ready-made wrapper; and, whilst waiting, he took me all through the house, from the cellar to the garret, saying that everything was at my command, and that the next day I would have a battalion of servants to wait on me."
It was evidently with perfect frankness that she was speaking, and with the pleasure one feels in telling an extraordinary adventure.
But suddenly she stopped short, as if discovering that she was forgetting herself, and going farther than was proper.
And it was only after a moment of reflection that she went on, "It was like fairyland to me. I had never tasted the opulence of the great, you see, and I had never had any money except that which I earned. So, during the first days, I did nothing but run up and down stairs, admiring everything, feeling everything with my own hands, and looking at myself in the glass to make sure that I was not dreaming. I rang the bell just to make the servants come up;
I spent hours trying dresses; then I'd have the horses put to the carriage, and either ride to the bois, or go out shopping. M.
Vincent gave me as much money as I wanted; and it seemed as though I never spent enough. I shout, I was like a mad woman.
A cloud appeared upon Mme. Zelie's countenance, and, changing suddenly her tone and her manner, "Unfortunately," she went on, "one gets tired of every thing. At the end of two weeks I knew the house from top to bottom, and after a month I was sick of the whole thing; so that one night I began dressing.
"'Where do you want to go?' Amanda asked me.
'Why, to Mabille, to dance a quadrille, or two.'
'Impossible!'
'Why?'
'Because M. Vincent does not wish you to go out at night.'
'We'll see about that!'
The next day, I tell all this to M. Vincent; and he says that Amanda is right; that it is not proper for a woman in my position to frequent balls; and that, if I want to go out at night, I can stay.
Get out! I tell you what, if it hadn't been for the fine carriage, and all that, I would have cleared out that minute. Any way, I became disgusted from that moment, and have been more and more ever since; and, if M. Vincent had not himself left, I certainly would."
"To go where?"
"Anywhere. Look here, now! do you suppose I need a man to support me! No, thank Heaven! Little Zelie, here present, has only to apply to any dressmaker, and she'll be glad to give her four francs a day to run the machine. And she'll be free, at least; and she can laugh and dance as much as she likes."
M. de Tregars had made a mistake: he had just discovered it.
Mme. Zelie Cadelle was certainly not particularly virtuous; but she was far from being the woman he expected to meet.
"At any rate," he said, "you did well to wait patiently."
"I do not regret it."
"If you can keep this house -"
She interrupted him with a great burst of laughter.
"This house!" she exclaimed. "Why, it was sold long ago, with every thing in it, - furniture, horses, carriages, every thing except me.
A young gentleman, very well dressed, bought it for a tall girl, who looks like a goose, and has far over a thousand francs of red hair on her head.".
"Are you sure of that?"
"Sure as I live, having seen with my own eyes the young swell and his red-headed friend counting heaps of bank-notes to M. Vincent.
They are to move in day after to-morrow; and they have invited me to the house-warming. But no more of it for me, I thank you! I am sick and tired of all these people. And the proof of it is, I am busy packing my things; and lots of them I have too, - dresses, underclothes, jewelry. He was a good-natured fellow, old Vincent was, anyhow. He gave me money enough to buy some furniture. I have hired a small apartment; and I am going to set up dress-making on my own hook. And won't we laugh then! and won't we have some fun to make up for lost time! Come, my children, take your places for a quadrille. Forward two!"
And, bouncing out of her chair, she began sketching out one of those bold cancan steps which astound the policemen on duty in the ball-rooms.
"Bravo!" said M. de Tregars, forcing himself to smile, - "bravo!"