was told, sir,” said the beggar, “there would be an answer.”
Chapter XVII
The next day was cold and damp. A fog, so thick that one could not discern objects ten steps off, hung over the earth. Sauvresy, after breakfast, took his gun and whistled to his dogs.
“I’m going to take a turn in Mauprevoir wood,” said he.
“A queer idea,” remarked Hector, “for you won’t see the end of your gun-barrel in the woods.”
“No matter, if I see some pheasants.”
This was only a pretext, for Sauvresy, on leaving Valfeuillu, took the direct road to Corbeil, and half an hour later, faithful to his promise, he entered the Belle Image tavern.
Jenny was waiting for him in the large room which had always been reserved for her since she became a regular customer of the house. Her eyes were red with recent tears; she was very pale, and her marble color showed that she had not slept. Her breakfast lay untouched on the table near the fireplace, where a bright fire was burning. When Sauvresy came in, she rose to meet him, and took him by the hand with a friendly motion.
“Thank you for coming,” said she. “Ah, you are very good.”
Jenny was only a girl, and Sauvresy detested girls; but her grief was so sincere and seemed so deep, that he was touched.
“You are suffering, Madame?” asked he.
“Oh, yes, very much.”
Her tears choked her, and she concealed her face in her handkerchief.
“I guessed right,” thought Sauvresy. “Hector has deserted her. Now I must smooth the wound, and yet make future meetings between them impossible.”
He took the weeping Jenny’s hand, and softly pulled away the handkerchief.
“Have courage,” said he.
She lifted her tearful eyes to him, and said:
“You know, then?”
“I know nothing, for, as you asked me, I have said nothing to Tremorel; but I can imagine what the trouble is.”
“He will not see me any more,” murmured Jenny. “He has deserted me.”
Sauvresy summoned up all his eloquence. The moment to be persuasive and paternal had come. He drew a chair up to Jenny’s, and sat down.
“Come, my child,” pursued he, “be resigned. People are not always young, you know. A time comes when the voice of reason must be heard. Hector does not desert you, but he sees the necessity of assuring his future, and placing his life on a domestic foundation; he feels the need of a home.”
Jenny stopped crying. Nature took the upper hand, and her tears were dried by the fire of anger which took possession of her. She rose, overturning her chair, and walked restlessly up and down the room.
“Do you believe that?” said she. “Do you believe that Hector troubles himself about his future? I see you don’t know his character. He dream of a home, or a family? He never has and never will think of anything but himself. If he had any heart, would he have gone to live with you as he has? He had two arms to gain his bread and mine. I was ashamed to ask money of him, knowing that what he gave me came from you.”
“But he is my friend, my dear child.”
“Would you do as he has done?”
Sauvresy did not know what to say; he was embarrassed by the logic of this daughter of the people, judging her lover rudely, but justly.
“Ah, I know him, I do,” continued Jenny, growing more excited as her mind reverted to the past. “He has only deceived me once—the morning he came and told me he was going to kill himself. I was stupid enough to think him dead, and to cry about it. He, kill himself? Why, he’s too much of a coward to hurt himself! Yes, I love him, but I don’t esteem him. That’s our fate, you see, only to love the men we despise.”
Jenny talked loud, gesticulating, and every now and then thumping the table with her fist so that the bottles and glasses jingled. Sauvresy was somewhat fearful lest the hotel people should hear her; they knew him, and had seen him come in. He began to be sorry that he had come, and tried to calm the girl.
“But Hector is not deserting you,” repeated he. “He will assure you a good position.”
“Humph! I should laugh at such a thing! Have I any need of him? As long as I have ten fingers and good eyes, I shall not be at the mercy of any man. He made me change my name, and wanted to accustom me to luxury! And now there is neither a Miss Jenny, nor riches, but there is a Pelagie, who proposes to get her fifty sous a day, without much trouble.”
“No,” said Sauvresy, “you will not need—”
“What? To work? But I like work; I am not a do-nothing. I will go back to my old life. I used to breakfast on a sou’s worth of biscuit and a sou’s worth of potatoes, and was well and happy. On Sundays, I dined at the Turk for thirty sous. I laughed more then in one afternoon, than in all the years I have known Tremorel.”
She no longer cried, nor was she angry; she was laughing. She was thinking of her old breakfasts, and her feasts at the Turk.
Sauvresy was stupefied. He had no idea of this Parisian nature, detestable and excellent, emotional to excess, nervous, full of transitions, which laughs and cries, caresses and strikes in the same minute, which a passing idea whirls a hundred leagues from the present moment.
“So,” said Jenny, more calmly, “I snap my fingers at Hector,” —she had just said exactly the contrary, and had forgotten it —“I don’t care for him, but I will not let him leave me in this way. It sha’n’t be said that he left me for another. I won’t have it.”
Jenny was one of those women who do not reason, but who feel; with whom it is folly to argue, for their fixed idea is impregnable to the most victorious arguments. Sauvresy asked himself why she had asked him to come, and said to himself that the part he had intended to play would be a difficult one. But he was patient.
“I see, my child,” he commenced, “that you haven’t understood or even heard me. I told you that Hector was intending to marry.”
“He!” answered Jenny, with an ironical gesture. “He get married.”
She reflected a moment, and added:
“If it were true, though—”
“I tell you it is so.”
“No,” cried Jenny, “no, that can’t be possible. He loves another, I am sure of it, for I have proofs.”
Sauvresy smiled; this irritated her.
“What does this letter mean,” cried she warmly, “which I found in his
