Other People's Money [147]
"Me!" she said in a voice that came from the heart. "I don't care a straw."
Marquis de Tregars knew well enough the ladies of the class to which he supposed that Mme. Zelie Cadelle must belong, not to be surprised at this frank declaration.
"And yet," he said, "you are indebted to him for the princely magnificence that surrounds you here."
"Of course."
"He being gone, as you say, will you be able to keep up your style of living?"
Half raising herself from her seat,
"I haven't the slightest idea of doing so," she exclaimed." Never in the whole world have I had such a stupid time as for the last five months that I have spent in this gilded cage. What a bore, my beloved brethren! I am yawning still at the mere thought of the number of times I have yawned in it."
M. de Tregars' gesture of surprise was the more natural, that his surprise was immense.
"You are tired being here?" he said.
"To death."
"And you have only been here five months?"
"Dear me; yes! and by the merest chance, too, you'll see. One day at the beginning of last December, I was coming from - but no matter where I was coming from. At any rate, I hadn't a cent in my pocket, and nothing but an old calico dress on my back; and I was going along, not in the best of humor, as you may imagine, when I feel that some one is following me. Without looking around, and from the corner of my eye, if look over my shoulder, and I see a respectable-looking old gentleman, wearing a long frock-coat."
"M.Vincent?"
"In his own natural person, and who was walking, walking. I quietly begin to walk slower; and, as soon as we come to a place where there was hardly any one, he comes up alongside of me."
Something comical must have happened at this moment, which Mme. Zelie Cadelle said nothing about; for she was laughing most heartily, - a frank and sonorous laughter.
"Then," she resumed, "he begins at once to explain that I remind him of a person whom he loved tenderly, and whom he has just had the misfortune to lose, adding, that he would deem himself the happiest of men if I would allow him to take care of me, and insure me a brilliant position."
"You see! That rascally Vincent!" said M. de Tregars, just to be saying something.
Mme. Zelie shook her head.
"You know him," she resumed. "He is not young; he is not handsome; he is not funny. I did not fancy him one bit; and, if I had only known where to find shelter for the night, I'd soon have sent him to the old Nick, - him and his brilliant position. But, not having enough money to buy myself a penny-loaf, it wasn't the time to put on any airs. So I tell him that I accept. He goes for a cab; we get into it; and he brings me right straight here."
Positively M. de Tregars required his entire self-control to conceal the intensity of his curiosity.
"Was this house, then, already as it is now?" he interrogated.
"Precisely, except that there were no servants in it, except the chambermaid Amanda, who is M. Favoral's confidante. All the others had been dismissed; and it was a hostler from a stable near by who came to take care of the horses."
"And what then?"
"Then you may imagine what I looked like in the midst of all this magnificence, with my old shoes and my fourpenny skirt. Something like a grease-spot on a satin dress. M. Vincent seemed delighted, nevertheless. He had sent Amanda out to get me some under-clothing and a ready-made wrapper; and, whilst waiting, he took me all through the house, from the cellar to the garret, saying that everything was at my command, and that the next day I would have a battalion of servants to wait on me."
It was evidently with perfect frankness that she was speaking, and with the pleasure one feels in telling an extraordinary adventure. But suddenly she stopped short, as if discovering that she was forgetting herself, and going farther than was proper.
And it was only after a moment of reflection that she went on,
"It was like fairyland to me. I had never tasted the opulence of the great, you see, and I