"Really," she replied, "I don't pity her much; for, if she only wanted, in forty-eight hours I should be paid, and she would have something else on her back besides that old black rag. I tell her every day, 'In these days, my child, there is but one reliable friend, which is better than all others, and which must be taken as it comes, without making any faces if it is a little dirty: that's money.' But all my preaching goes for nothing. I might as well sing."
Maxence was listening with intense delight.
"In short, what does she do?" he asked.
"That's more than I know," replied Mme. Fortin. "The young lady has not much to say. All I know is, that she leaves every morning bright and early, and rarely gets home before eleven. On Sunday she stays home, reading; and sometimes, in the evening, she goes out, always alone, to some theatre or ball. Ah! she is an odd one, I tell you!"
A lodger who came in interrupted the landlady; and Maxence walked off dreaming how he could manage to make the acquaintance of his pretty and eccentric neighbor.
Because he had once spent some hundreds of napoleons in the company of young ladies with yellow chignons, Maxence fancied himself a man of experience, and had but little faith in the virtue of a girl of twenty, living alone in a hotel, and left sole mistress of her own fancy. He began to watch for every occasion of meeting her; and, towards the last of the month, he had got so far as to bow to her, and to inquire after her health.
But, the first time he ventured to make love to her, she looked at him head to foot, and turned her back upon him with so much contempt, that he remained, his mouth wide open, perfectly stupefied.
"I am losing my time like a fool," he thought.
Great, then, was his surprise, when the following week, on a fine afternoon, he saw Mlle. Lucienne leave her room, no longer clad in her eternal black dress, but wearing a brilliant and extremely rich toilet. With a beating heart he followed her.
In front of the Hotel des Folies stood a handsome carriage and horses.
As soon as Mlle. Lucienne appeared, a footman opened respectfully the carriage-door. She went in; and the horses started at a full trot.
Maxence watched the carriage disappear in the distance, like a child who sees the bird fly upon which he hoped to lay hands.
"Gone," he muttered, "gone!"
But, when he turned around, he found himself face to face with the Fortins, man and wife; who were laughing a sinister laugh.
"What did I tell you?" exclaimed Mine Fortin. "There she is, started at last. Get up, horse! She'll do well, the child."
The magnificent equipage and elegant dress had already produced quite an effect among the neighbors. The customers sitting in front of the caf were laughing among themselves. The confectioner and his wife were casting indignant glances at the proprietors of the Hotel des Folies.
"You see, M. Favoral," replied Mme. Fortin, "such a girl as that was not made for our neighborhood. You must make up your mind to it; you won't see much more of her on the Boulevard du Temple."
Without saying a word, Maxence ran to his room, the hot tears streaming from his eyes. He felt ashamed of himself; for, after all, what was this girl to him?.
She is gone!" he repeated to himself. "Well, good-by, let her go!"
But, despite all his efforts at philosophy, he felt an immense sadness invading his heart: ill-defined regrets and spasms of anger agitated him. He was thinking what a fool he had been to believe in the grand airs of the young lady, and that, if he had had dresses and horses to give her, she might not have received him so harshly.
At last he made up his mind to think no more of her, - one of those fine resolutions which are always taken, and never kept; and in the evening he left his room to go and dine in the Rue St. Gilles.
But, as was often his custom, he stopped at the caf next door, and called for a drink. He was mixing his absinthe when he saw the carriage that had carried off Mlle. Lucienne in the morning returning at a rapid gait, and stopping short in front of the hotel. Mlle.
Lucienne got out slowly, crossed the sidewalk, and entered the narrow corridor. Almost immediately, the carriage turned around, and drove off.
"What does it mean?" thought Maxence, who was actually forgetting to swallow his absinthe.
He was losing himself in absurd conjectures, when, some fifteen minutes later, he saw the girl coming out again. Already she had taken off her elegant clothes, and resumed her cheap black dress.
She had a basket on her arm, and was going towards the Rue Chariot.
Without further reflections, Maxence rose suddenly, and started to follow her, being very careful that she should not see him. After walking for five or six minutes, she entered a shop, half-eating house, and half wine-shop, in the window of which a large sign could be read: "Ordinary at all hours for forty centimes. Hard boiled eggs, and salad of the season."
Maxence, having crept up as close as he could, saw Mlle. Lucienne take a tin box out of her basket, and have what is called an "ordinaire" poured into it; that is, half a pint of soup, a piece of beef as large as the fist, and a few vegetables. She then had a small bottle half-filled with wine, paid, and walked out with that same look of grave dignity which she always wore.
"Funny dinner," murmured Maxence, "for a woman who was spreading herself just now in a ten-thousand-franc carriage."
From that moment she became the sole and only object of his thoughts.
A passion, which he no longer attempted to resist, was penetrating like a subtle poison to the innermost depths of his being. He thought himself happy, when, after watching for hours, he caught a glimpse of this singular creature, who, after that extraordinary expedition, seemed to have resumed her usual mode of life. Mme.
Fortin was dumfounded.
"She has been too exacting," she said to Maxence, "and the thing has fallen through."