Part 21 (2/2)
”I must leave you, not having sufficient to pay the toll.”
”Nonsense,” said the other, catching hold of Rodolphe and throwing two sous to the toll keeper.
”This is the right moment,” thought the editor of ”The Scarf of Iris,”
as they crossed the bridge. Arrived at the further end in front of the clock of the Inst.i.tute, Rodolphe stopped short, pointed to the dial with a despairing gesture, and exclaimed:--
”Confound it all, a quarter to five! I am done for.”
”What is the matter?” cried his astonished friend.
”The matter is,” said Rodolphe, ”that, thanks to your dragging me here in spite of myself, I have missed an appointment.”
”An important one?”
”I should think so; money that I was to call for at five o'clock at--Batignolles. I shall never be able to get there. Hang it; what am I to do?”
”Why,” said the phalansterian, ”nothing is simpler; come home with me and I will lend you some.”
”Impossible, you live at Montrouge, and I have business at six o'clock at the Chaussee d'Antin. Confound it.”
”I have a trifle about me,” said Providence, timidly, ”but it is very little.”
”If I had enough to take a cab I might get to Batignolles in time.”
”Here is the contents of my purse, my dear fellow, thirty one sous.”
”Give it to me at once, that I may bolt,” said Rodolphe, who had just heard five o'clock strike, and who hastened off to keep his appointment.
”It has been hard to get,” said he, counting out his money. ”A hundred sous exactly. At last I am supplied, and Laure will see that she has to do with a man who knows how to do things properly. I won't take a centime home this evening. We must rehabilitate literature, and prove that its votaries only need money to be wealthy.”
Rodolphe found Mademoiselle Laure at the trysting place.
”Good,” said he, ”for punctuality she is a feminine chronometer.”
He spent the evening with her, and bravely melted down his five francs in the crucible of prodigality. Mademoiselle Laure was charmed with his manners, and was good enough only to notice that Rodolphe had not escorted her home at the moment when he was ushering her into his own room.
”I am committing a fault,” said she. ”Do not make me repent of it by the ingrat.i.tude which is characteristic of your s.e.x.”
”Madame,” said Rodolphe, ”I am known for my constancy. It is such that all my friends are astonished at my fidelity, and have nicknamed me the General Bertrand of Love.”
CHAPTER IX
THE WHITE VIOLETS
About this time Rodolphe was very much in love with his cousin Angela, who couldn't bear him; and the thermometer was twelve degrees below freezing point.
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