Part 11 (1/2)
He had made a curious answer. She stared at him, perplexed.
”You can 'imagine' it?”
”Very well.”
”But you yourself have experienced such a loss, monsieur?” faltered the widow nervously. Had trouble unhinged his brain?
”No,” said the young man; ”to speak by the clock, my own loss has not yet occurred.”
A brief silence fell, during which she cast uneasy glances towards the door.
He added, as if anxious that she should do him justice: ”But I would not have you consider my lamentations premature.”
”How true it is,” breathed the lady, ”that in this world no human soul can wholly comprehend another!”
”Mine is a very painful history,” he warned her, taking the hint; ”yet if it will serve to divert your mind from your own misfortune, I shall be honoured to confide it to you. Stay, the tenth invitation, which an accident prevented my dispatching, would explain the circ.u.mstances tersely: but I much fear that the room is too dark for you to decipher all the subtleties. Have I your permission to turn up the gas?”
”Do so, by all means, monsieur,” said the lady graciously. And the light displayed to her, first, as personable a young man as she could have desired to see; second, an imposing card, which was inscribed as follows:
MONSIEUR ACHILLE FLAMANT, ARTIST,
Forewarns you of the
DEATH OF HIS CAREER
The Interment will take place at the Cafe of the Broken Heart on December 31st.
_Valedictory N.B.--A sympathetic costume Victuals will be appreciated.
7 p.m._
”I would call your attention to the border of cypress, and to the tomb in the corner,” said the young man, with melancholy pride. ”You may also look favourably on the figure with the shovel, which, of course, depicts me in the act of burying my hopes. It is a symbolic touch that no hope is visible.”
”It is a very artistic production altogether,” said the widow, dissembling her astonishment. ”So you are a painter, monsieur Flamant?”
”Again speaking by the clock, I am a painter,” he concurred; ”but at midnight I shall no longer be in a position to say so--in the morning I am pledged to the life commercial. You will not marvel at my misery when I inform you that the existence of Achille Flamant, the artist, will terminate in five hours and twenty odd minutes!”
”Well, I am commercial myself,” she said. ”I am madame Aurore, the Beauty Specialist, of the rue Baba. Do not think me wanting in the finer emotions, but I a.s.sure you that a lucrative establishment is not a calamity.”
”Madame Aurore,” demurred the painter, with a bow, ”your own business is but a sister art. In your atelier, the saffron of a bad complexion blooms to the fairness of a rose, and the bunch of a lumpy figure is modelled to the grace of Galatea. With me it will be a different pair of shoes; I shall be condemned to perch on a stool in the office of a wine-merchant, and invoice vintages which my thirty francs a week will not allow me to drink. No comparison can be drawn between your lot and my little.”
”Certainly I should not like to perch,” she confessed.
”Would you rejoice at the thirty francs a week?”
”Well, and the thirty francs a week are also poignant. But you may rise, monsieur; who shall foretell the future? Once I had to make both ends meet with less to coax them than the salary you mention. Even when my poor husband was taken from me--heigho!” she raised a miniature handkerchief delicately to her eyes--”when I was left alone in the world, monsieur, my affairs were greatly involved--I had practically nothing but my resolve to succeed.”
”And the witchery of your personal attractions, madame,” said the painter politely.
”Ah!” A pensive smile rewarded him. ”The business was still in its infancy, monsieur; yet to-day I have the smartest clientele in Paris. I might remove to the rue de la Paix to-morrow if I pleased. But, I say, why should I do that? I say, why a reckless rental for the sake of a fas.h.i.+onable address, when the fas.h.i.+onable men and women come to me where I am?”
”You show profound judgment, madame,” said Flamant. ”Why, indeed!”