Volume I Part 3 (1/2)
”HENRIETTE.”
”Well! what do you say to that?”
”Why! I say--but what reply did you make? did you send the money?”
”I'm not so foolish, I tell you! In the first place, this letter is altogether too much! What does she mean by 'her furniture, that she thought was paid for, but is not?' And this upholsterer who will have her turned out of her apartments if she doesn't pay him? An upholsterer may take back his furniture, but he doesn't turn you into the street by that. The trick was too plain; and in order to write such stuff to a man, one must take him for a goose. As I don't care to be likened to that bird, I instantly informed the messenger that I was terribly distressed, that I was in despair, but that I was unable to hand her anything for Mademoiselle Henriette, and she went away with that answer.--_Bigre_! four hundred francs at one slap, for a flower-maker--that's too magnificent! You aim too high, my love!”
”Well! what next?”
”Why, there is no next.”
”Didn't Henriette send to you again?”
”Not at all! she made the best of it, like a brave heart. She said to herself: 'There's a young buck who isn't such an a.s.s as I thought.'--And I am sure that I have gained greatly in her esteem; that pleases me.”
”I can see nothing in all this to interfere with our going now to call for the young ladies and taking them to the Opera ball, as we agreed.”
”Ah! you can't, eh? Well, when I went out for a stroll before dinner, I thought I would find out if the catastrophe had had any results, and I walked as far as Rue de Saintonge, where our turtle-doves had their perch. I asked the concierge: 'Is Mademoiselle Henriette in?'--Thereupon that counterfeit Swiss looked at me with rather a bantering expression, and replied:
”'No, monsieur, those young women have gone away.'
”'Will they return soon?'
”'Return! oh! I fancy they won't return here; they carried off their belongings very cunningly in little bundles, and then they skipped. The landlord came and made a row with me about it, and said that I didn't ought to let anything go out of the house. But what can you expect? the women nowadays wear skirts puffed out like balloons, so, you see, those girls could have stuffed their whole wardrobe underneath. Ah! those skirts are very deceitful; they'll be the cause of many _poufs_.'[C]
”'But,' I said to the man, 'what is the landlord afraid of? Those young women had some very nice furniture, and I don't suppose they put their mattresses and their wardrobes with gla.s.s doors under their skirts, did they? And this isn't a furnished lodging-house; they had their own furniture, didn't they?'
”'That is to say, they had their own furniture to pay for; the upholsterer wanted to carry it away this morning; but not much--the landlord must be paid first and they owed him for three quarters. For all that, it's mighty unpleasant; it always ends in a row! When the upholsterer found that he couldn't carry away his furniture, he was crazy. ”You ought not to have let those women go!” he said; ”I'd have had them put in prison.” And so on and so forth. Have I any right to keep tenants from going out, I'd like to know?'
”'No, certainly you haven't any such right; a concierge's authority doesn't go so far as that; perhaps it may come, though, I shouldn't be surprised! They do some pretty rough things already, but they haven't got to the point of imprisoning tenants.'
”'Never mind; when we let rooms to two girls together again, it will be hotter than it is now!'
”'Do you think there's less danger when they are alone?'
”'Certainly, one can keep a closer watch on them then; but when there's two of 'em, why, they do nothing else besides going back and forth before one's eyes, and it's impossible to know who goes in and out--so one gets totally bewildered.'
”That, my dear fellow, is the conversation I had with the concierge of those damsels, who strike me as being decidedly a bad lot. You see that it's no use for us to go to their last lodgings to look for them.”
”I see that the letter wasn't so far from the truth, when it said that they would be turned out if they did not pay.”
”They succeeded in escaping unaided. I asked how much the upholsterer claimed: it was eight or nine hundred francs, I believe; but if I had turned in four hundred francs, do you imagine for a moment that they would have given it to their creditor? Ah! how little you know of that breed! They would have vanished with my money, that's all!”
”Do you think so?”
”In other words, I am sure of it. 'Brought up in the harem, I know all its devious ways.' These girls pa.s.s their lives making _poufs_; then they make a trip to England, to try to make the conquest of some _lord_; and when they don't succeed in that, they are obliged to sell everything, even to their chemises, to pay for their return trip to Paris. I tell you that I know the whole business, step by step.”
”It's a pity! I regret Amelia, for she was very pretty!”
”There are others! Paris swarms with pretty women. Henriette was very attractive, too; pink and white, Watteau style.”
”I am terribly annoyed.”