Part 32 (1/2)
As Mlle. Fouchette stood tiptoeing before a little folding mirror on the high mantel, the reflection showed both front and sides of a face that betrayed none of these characteristics. In fact, the blonde hair, smoothed flat to the skull and draping low over the ears, after the fas.h.i.+on set by a popular actress of the day, gave her the demure look of a young woman who might shriek at the sight of a man in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. Which shows that it is exceedingly unsafe to judge by appearances,--of a woman, especially. The slender figure showed that the physical indications in the delicately rounded arm, the taper fingers, and shapely feet were justified by the proportionate development of the rest of her anatomy. Nature had been gentle rather than generous. Mlle. Fouchette was in demand for angels and ballet dancers.
Her face, evidently, did not suit Mlle. Fouchette, since she was at this moment in the act of touching it up and making it over with colors from an enamelled box,--a trick of the Parisienne of every grade.
Mlle. Fouchette had scarcely put the finis.h.i.+ng touches to her artistic job when her door vibrated under a vigorous blow.
She paused, hesitated, flushed with symptoms of a rising temper. One does not feel kindly towards persons hurling themselves thus against one's private door. But the noise continued, as if somebody beat the heavy planking with the fist, and Mlle. Fouchette threw the door open.
Mlle. Madeleine staggered into the room.
”How's this? melon!”
”Oh! so you're here,--you are not there!” gasped the intruder, falling into a seat and fixing her black eyes sullenly upon the other.
Mlle. Fouchette closed the door with a snap and confronted her visitor with a hardening face.
”I thought it was you, Fouchette!”
”Madeleine, you're drunk!”
”No, no, no, no! I have had such a--a--turn, deary,--pardon me! But she had the same figure,--the same hair,--mon Dieu!”
”Who?”
”Oh! I don't know, Fouchette,--the woman with him, you know,--with Henri, Fouchette!”
The speaker seemed overcome with mingled terror and anger. She stopped to collect her thoughts,--to get her breath.
”What a fool you are, Madeleine! I wouldn't go on that way for the best man living! No!”
And Fouchette thought of Jean Marot, and mentally included him.
”Oh! Fouchette, dear, you do not know! You cannot know! You never loved! You cannot love! You are calm and cold and indifferent,--it is your nature. Mine! I am consumed by fire,--it grips my very vitals!
Ah! Fouchette!”
”Bah! Madeleine, it is absinthe,” said Fouchette, only half pityingly.
”No, no, no, no!” moaned the other, covering her face with her hands.
”So this Lerouge has disappeared, eh? Well, then, let him go, fool!
Are there not others?”
”Mon Dieu! Fouchette, how you talk!”
”Who is this lucky woman?”
”I do not know,--I do not know! Pardon me for thinking it, Fouchette, but I was half crazy,--I thought but just now that it was--was you!”
”Idiot!”