Part 8 (2/2)

”I beg you to say no more, monsieur, and never speak to me again; if you do, I will tell Ernest that you called him a popinjay, and how you have been talking to me. Ah! he will teach you a lesson.”

”What's that? You insolent, impertinent little hussy!”

”Bah! you old fool!”

And with that, the girl ran quickly upstairs. Monsieur le comte returned to his room grumbling, and I said to myself:

”She must really love her Ernest, since she prefers poverty with him to comfort with another;” and I was almost ashamed of having made some few sweet speeches to her, for, without being constant oneself, one may well do homage to constancy.

I was curious to see her lover; but probably he came early in the morning and went away late, or not at all. One day, however, I met him; and I was surprised to find that I knew him; I had met him several times in society. He was a young man of excellent family, not more than twenty years old; he was a comely youth, but he had a mania for writing for the stage, and had not as yet succeeded in having any of his plays produced, except a few unimportant things at some of the boulevard theatres. His parents did not approve of his taste for the drama, and desired to force him to enter the government service; but he always found a way to delay until the place was filled; and his parents, who were not at all satisfied with him, gave him very little pocket money. Poor fellow! I understood why his little mistress had potatoes oftener than quail.

I knew him only by his family name; I did not know that his name was Ernest. When we met on the stairs, he smiled and we bowed. I did not try to stop him, he always went up so rapidly. I understood that he was more anxious to be up there with her than to talk with me.

It was a long time since I had met Marguerite and her young lover. On returning from Giraud's party, I noticed much commotion in my concierge's lodge; the husband and wife were both up, although it was after midnight, and one of them was ordinarily in bed by eleven o'clock.

An old cook who lived in the house was also in their lodge; they were talking earnestly and I overheard these words:

”She is very ill; the midwife shook her head, and that's a very bad sign.”

”Who is very ill?” I asked, as I took my candle.

”Why, monsieur, it's little Marguerite; she has had a miscarriage.”

”What! was that poor child enceinte?”

”You don't mean to say that you haven't noticed it, monsieur? She was four and a half months gone.”

”Is not Monsieur Ernest with her?”

”Oh! he is like a madman. He has just gone home; it's only a few steps away. He took our little nephew with him, so as to bring something back with him probably; for there ain't anything at all upstairs.”

At that moment there was a loud knocking at the gate. Someone opened it and Ernest came into the courtyard with a mattress on his head; the young man had not hesitated to endanger his fine clothes by doing the work of a porter; when it is a question of helping the woman one loves, such things are not considered. Moreover, at midnight, the streets are not crowded.

The little nephew came behind, bringing an armchair covered with Utrecht velvet; I saw that young Ernest, without the knowledge of his parents, had despoiled his own chamber in order to provide his young friend with a little furniture.

”It is high time that you came back, monsieur,” said the concierge, with that alarming manner which heightens the effect of bad news.

”Mademoiselle Marguerite is very sick; there's complications. In fact, she is losing all her blood, and you know it can't go on long that way.”

The young man uttered a cry of dismay, and throwing the mattress to the ground, ran up the stairs four at a time, without stopping to listen to anything more. I remained in front of the concierges' lodge, both of them being too old and too lazy to offer to carry up the mattress; as for the little nephew, it was all that he could do to climb up with the chair, and the cook was there solely to gossip. I soon made up my mind: I took the mattress on my shoulders and I went up with it to the fifth floor.

I reached the door of little Marguerite's bedroom. It was not locked, and yet I dared not go in. I knew that the girl was so poor; and one should be especially careful when dealing with poor people. Perhaps she and her lover would be offended to think that I had ventured to come up.

And yet, since she was so ill----

While I was hesitating, standing at the door with the mattress on my shoulders, I heard a shrill voice say:

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