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Page 11
Meanwhile another sort of success was steadily thrusting itself upon
her--she certainly never went out of her way to seek it; she was much
too busy to do that. Such of her old friends as remained in Paris came
frequently to see her, and new friends gathered round her. She was
beautiful, she was intelligent, responsive, entertaining. In her
salon, on a Friday evening, you would meet half the lions that were at
large in the town--authors, painters, actors, actresses, deputies,
even an occasional Cabinet minister. Red ribbons and red rosettes
shone from every corner of the room. She had become one of the
oligarchs of _la haute Boh�me_, she had become one of the celebrities
of Paris. It would be tiresome to count the novels, poems, songs, that
were dedicated to her, the portraits of her, painted or sculptured,
that appeared at the Mirlitons or the Palais de l'Industrie.
Numberless were the _partis_ who asked her to marry them (I know one,
at least, who has returned to the charge again and again), but she
only laughed, and vowed she would never marry. I don't say that she
has never had her fancies, her experiences; but she has consistently
scoffed at marriage. At any rate, she has never affected the least
repentance for what some people would call her 'fault.' Her ideas of
right and wrong have undergone very little modification. She was
deceived in her estimate of the character of Ernest Mayer, if you
please; but she would indignantly deny that there was anything sinful,
anything to be ashamed of, in her relations with him. And if, by
reason of them, she at one time suffered a good deal of pain, I am
sure she accounts Camille an exceeding great compensation. That
Camille is her child she would scorn to make a secret. She has scorned
to assume the conciliatory title of Madame. As plain Mademoiselle,
with a daughter, you must take her or leave her. And, somehow, all
this has not seemed to make the faintest difference to her
_client�le_, not even to the primmest of the English. I can't think of
one of them who did not treat her with deference, like her, and
recommend her house.
But _her_ house they need recommend no more, for she has sold it. Last
spring, when I was in Paris, she told me she was about to do so. 'Ouf!
I have lived with my nose to the grindstone long enough. I am going to
"retire."' What money she had saved from season to season, she
explained, she had entrusted to her friend Baron C----for speculation.
'He is a wizard, and so I am a rich woman. I shall have an income of
something like three thousand pounds, mon cher! Oh, we will roll in
it. I have had ten bad years--ten hateful years. You don't know how I
have hated it all, this business, this drudgery, this cut-and-dried,
methodical existence--moi, enfant de Boh�me! But, enfin, it was
obligatory. Now we will change all that. Nous reviendrons � nos
premi�res amours. I shall have ten good years--ten years of barefaced
pleasure. Then--I will range myself--perhaps. There is the darlingest
little house for sale, a sort of ch�let, built of red brick, with
pointed windows and things, in the Rue de Lisbonne. I shall buy
it--furnish it--decorate it. Oh, you will see. I shall have my
carriage, I shall have toilets, I shall entertain, I shall give
dinners--ol�l�! No more boarders, no more bores, cares,
responsibilities. Only my friends and--_life_! I feel like one
emerging from ten years in the galleys, ten years of penal servitude.
To the Pension Childe--bonsoir!'
'That's all very well for you,' her listener complained sombrely. 'But
for me? Where shall I stop when I come to Paris?'
'With me. You shall be my guest. I will kill you if you ever go
elsewhere. You shall pass your old age in a big chair in the best
room, and Camille and I will nurse your gout and make herb-tea for
you.'
'And I shall sit and think of what might have been.'
'Yes, we'll indulge all your little foibles. You shall sit and "feel
foolish"--from dawn to dewy eve.'
XII.
If you had chanced to be walking in the Bois-de-Boulogne this
afternoon, you might have seen a smart little basket-phaeton flash
past, drawn by two glossy frays, and driven by a woman--a woman with
sparkling eyes, a lovely colour, great quantities of soft dark hair,
and a figure--
'H�las, mon p�re, la taille d'une d�esse'--
a smiling woman, in a wonderful blue-grey toilet, grey driving gloves,
and a bold-brimmed grey-felt hat with waving plumes. And in the man
beside her you would have recognised your servant. You would have
thought me in great luck, perhaps you would have envied me.
But--_esse, quam videri_!--I would I were as enviable as I looked.
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