Part 12 (1/2)
III
IN WHICH HE FINDS THERE ARE SOME THINGS WHICH ONE CANNOT BUY
After not a great deal of hesitation, toward the middle of a warm June, Bulstrode permitted himself to become the proprietor of a palace: not an inhabitant of the ordinary dwelling modelled after some old-world wonder, wherein American millionaires choose to spend their leisure in their own country--but of a real traditional palace, in whose charrandfather, and where the enchanting woonards and Nattiers alht for alady
On the very first day he went over the Hotel Montensier froave in, and accepted the Duc de Montensier's proposition to ”fetch his traps for a few months to the hotel and turn Parisian” He was in the heart of Paris, yet all around hiarden, to which the terraces of the house gave in flights of ested that Bulstrode turn Parisian, Jihed ”Do you think,” he had asked, ”that a chap born in Providence, educated in Harvard, and, if coshly American from start to finish, could, _mon cher_, turn Parisian?” And the Duc had assured him that he did not think Bulstrode had a ”Latin eyelash,” and that he needn't be at all afraid to try his luck at what a French house would do for hihed, ”speaks of Poole with a Boston compromise!
The Duc had been in the United States--moreover, the Frencho to Newport and leave his house in the care of Jimmy Bulstrode Whether the Puritan in him led Bulstrode to excuse to hiized, saying that nobody could expect a man with a love of the beautiful, and who had more or less a desire to shut himself up and to shut himself away for a time, to refuse
The Falconers were off soh Spain It was pretty hot to do such a thing, however, and he did not really know He wanted very much to be able not to let himself follow the such stoicis! So he shut hiavelittle dinners and parties on his terraces in the bland suet the flight of a certain motor over the fair white roads and, above all, to nerve himself up to refuse an invitation for the middle of July
Directly opposite the white facade of the Montensiers' hotel was a hostelry for beggars, for domestics without places; for poor professors; for actors with no stages but the last; for laborers with no labor; in short, for the riff-raff of the population, for those who no longer hold the dignity of profession or pay rent for a term
Sometimes Bulstrode would look out at the teneeneral aspect indicated that dislocated fortunes flourished In one , pirouetting or dancing in it, calling out of it, leaning perilously over the sill of it, was a child--as far as Bulstrode could decide, a creature of about six years of age She was too sesticulation, and perpetual motion When the day was hot she fanned herself with a bit of paper She called far out to the wine-merchant's wife, who sat with her fautter
In Paris, when the weather clihty, Parisians count themselves in the tropics and the people, who lived apparently out of doors altogether, wore a arden, full of roses and heliotrope, watered and refreshed by the fountains' delightful falling, was a retreat not to be surpassed by ave little dinners on the terrace; little suppers after the theatre, when roohted with fairy lanterns, and his chef outdid his traditions to please his A on the terrace with nothingthan the drip of the fountain and the remote murmur of Paris to break his reverie, Prosper, his confidential man, ood_, see a young lady?”
His master smiled as he rose, instinctively at the words ”jeune dear
”Pardon, ht amuse m'sieu--” and Prosper stepped back
Bulstrode had been intently thinking of the caravansary opposite him, and he no that part of the _hotel nized it immediately for the sure of a dirty little girl in rags, tatters, and furbelows, her legs clad in red silk stockings evidently intended for fuller, shapelier limbs; her feet slipped about in pattens She had on a wo flounced skirt pinned up to keep her fro Her head was adorned by a torn straw hat, also contrived and created for the coquetry of an in a flute-like voice ”I have come to thank monsieur with all htenment, but that individual had cleverly disappeared
”To thank s and butter and sugar that ood as to send me I have made the cake It is beautiful! Monsieur le cuisinier of this house baked it for ot tired stirring See--it says--” She had, so he no, a book under her ar fall a fold of her cu a filthy cook-book, she laid it on the table, bending over it ”It says stir briskly half an hour” (Her ”rs” rolled in her throat like tiny cannons in a rosy hollow) ”Quelle idee! It was _too_ stupid! Half an hour! I just mixed it round once or twice and then--voila! it has white on the top and shall have a candle”
”So you've ood one”
She nodded brightly ”It is for that I came to thank monsieur and to ask if he would accept a piece of it”
Poor Bulstrode, with dreadful suspicion, looked to see part of the horror iustation ”I don't, my dear, understand Why should you thank _htful ”But for s, and flour Monsieur Prosper, when he gave them, said it was of the kindness of '_Monsieur Balstro_'”
(Oh, Prosper! ”I have corrupted _hiht ”He is as bad as I alad indeed,” and he said it heartily ”But what did you especially want to make it for--with the one candle? That means one year old Who's birthday may it then be?”
”It is the birthday of reat black eyes, which dirt and neglect could not spoil
There was in her appearance so little suggestion of maternal care that Bulstrode nearly incredulously asked, ”Your mother? And what, then, does your mother do?”
”She's a fish,” inforh startled, could believe it It too perfectly accounted for the cold-blooded indifference to this offspring Not even a uilty of so little care for her child Still, he repeated:
”A fish?”