Part 5 (1/2)

Madame Fortier saw nothing to smile at in this. ”Yes, of course,” she said seriously.

Madame Garnier now said, ”They must be _very_ rich. Where is it they are from, Buenos Aires?”

”Oh, no, Madame Garnier. I think it is somewhere in North America. My Henri says that....”

Madame Garnier broke in, irritated, to say with suppressed heat, ”Oh, North America or South America, what's the difference? They are all foreigners, and who knows what strange, immoral ideas they have? They don't come to Ma.s.s, you know. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the man is a Free-Mason. I wish M. Garnier had not asked me to call on them.”

The other shrugged her shoulders resignedly, ”Yes, it's a very strange thing to do, make the first call, and on people you know nothing about.

But M. Fortier says the man, M. Allen, is very important in a business way, and he specially asked all the business men to have their wives call on his wife. He almost seemed to make it a sort of condition, so M.

Fortier said, almost made them promise before he would talk business with them. It may be in America, they do. And of course anything M.

Fortier thinks may be good for his business....”

Madame Garnier's nod signified that of course that principle went without saying for any good wife; the expression of her face adding that this was an application of it which might count as one of a good wife's sacrifices. But she said hopefully, ”Well, they won't stay very long, foreigners never do.”

Madame Fortier now murmured, ”They say she's very free with the gentlemen. M. Fortier and his friends are laughing about her. They say they really don't know how much of what she says is due to her bad French; or how far she really does expect them to go.”

This did not surprise Madame Garnier. ”What can you expect? I shall see to it that our Jean-Pierre has nothing to do with them.”

This apparently started a new train of thought for Madame Fortier, for she now said with the cheery warmth of one who brings out something which will be a bitter pill to her interlocutor. ”It seems the American, M. Allen, has taken quite a fancy to our Henri. We think we can get a position for Henri, through him, in America, where Henri can learn English, and study the American market. It would be a great help in the business if Henri knew English and all about American imports. And of course the salaries paid in America are enormous.”

Madame Garnier's eyes opened wide. She fell into a trance-like meditation, and presently murmured, ”Our Jean-Pierre made quite a specialty of English in the lycee. I should think....”

The mother of Henri shook her head decidedly, ”I don't think America would suit your Jean-Pierre's temperament,” she said. ”He's not at all practical. And you get skinned alive by American business men if you're not as sharp as they. No, you'd better keep Jean-Pierre away from them.”

The two looked at each other hard. A brilliant light of rivalry came into their eyes. It brought an animation, a zest into their faces, which made them look years younger. A main-spring had been touched, and all their wheels began visibly to turn.

Steps were heard in the hall.

They composed their faces, and turned towards the door. The American lady now came in, and they rose to greet her. They were extremely cordial, a compet.i.tive friendliness in their manner.

They went down the well-polished oaken stairs in silence, each holding up her long heavy skirt with one gloved hand and letting the other rest on the railing. At the bottom, each with an automatic gesture like a reflex action, looked at the palm of her glove to see if it had been soiled by the railing, and with a similar mechanical action, shook their heads disapprovingly, although there was not a grain of dust on the smooth, tightly-stretched, pale kid.

They shook out the trains of their skirts and swept into the street, conscious of the pouncing inspection of Anna Etchergary, gazing at them from the loge of the concierge, and proudly aware that there was nothing to criticize in any detail of their backs or anywhere else about them.

They turned to the left and began to climb the steep street which led towards the Cathedral. Madame Fortier remarked presently, ”Very bad taste, that dress, like an actress. All that white silk and lace. And slippers like a dancing girl's. It must be she never puts her hand to anything in the house.”

”No, she doesn't,” returned the other disapprovingly. ”My Marguerite meets her Jeanne every morning at market. She says that Jeanne says the American lady never does anything about the house, and doesn't even verify her accounts. You can just imagine what Jeanne is getting out of it. It quite upsets Marguerite, and I have to be specially careful with my own accounts. Everybody near them is getting a rake-off on everything.” She made these revelations with a satisfied look as though the words had a pleasant taste in her mouth.

Madame Fortier's comment was made with the accent of mature, worldly experience, ”Mark my words, money spent in a loose careless way like that _must have been ill come by_. That's the way disreputable women spend money.”

”It's very hard on the rest of us, at any rate. And Jeanne tells our Margot that she is a very poor housekeeper, as heedless as a child, wears her best tailored street dress in the house as like as not, lies down on the bed when she is not sick at all, and doesn't do a thing but read novels all the time; or fool away a whole afternoon in the Museum.

Very suspicious, that, too. Why should anybody go to the Museum so much?

I'd just like to know whom she meets there. A regular place of rendezvous, the Museum. I wonder if her husband knows.”

They were enjoying the conversation so much that their faces looked quite sunny and bright. The other shook her head forebodingly. There was a silence as they climbed steadily up the steep, narrow, stone-flagged street.

Then Madame Garnier remarked, ”The little girl is quite pretty, though so mannerless.”

”Her dress was covered with grease spots, and had a hook off the back,”