VIII THE MOTHER OF LOUISON

Barabant, baffled and incensed at Nicole's desertion, vowed that he would be through with such a coquette. Where pride begins there is a limit to gratitude, and that limit she had overstepped. He washed his hands of her. So, having decided—irrevocably decided—that Nicole had removed herself from any interest of his, and that it was a matter of indifference to him whether or not he saw her again, he determined to bring her to reason by paying attention to Louison.

Accordingly he contrived to meet her in the passageway the morning after his unceremonious desertion by Nicole.

"Salutations, Citoyen Barabant," Louison cried. "No luck this morning. Nicole has already left."

"Nicole is out of the question," he retorted.

"What!" Louison opened her eyes in astonishment.

"I say, we have nothing to do with Nicole," he replied coolly. "Where are you bound?"

"To the flower-market."

"I understand the route is dangerous at this time of day."

"Exceedingly dangerous."

"Then I had better accompany you."

"I think you had."

With this light introduction, they set out through the stirring city, greeted by the slamming of opening shutters, and escaping the clouds of dust that rose from the brooms of concierges. Louison was the first to speak.

"Well, comrade, and how goes it with you?"

Barabant affected ignorance.

"What, is it not serious with you and Nicole?"

"Serious is a big word," he answered, resolved not to yield an inch.

"I see, a little interest, but not—not the grand passion, violent and sacred!" She added, with a false sigh, "Poor Nicole, it is serious with her."

"Of course."

"I know it."

"You imagine it."

"I know it by one sign: she is jealous. There you are!" She laughed. "She is always jealous of me when it's serious. This time, though, there is no cause. I shall not interfere." She placed a flower to her lips and shot a quick glance up at him. "Though I met you the first."

"Do I count for nothing—or my preference?"

"Nini!" She shook one finger slowly back and forth. "Let us talk of other things. I might unconsciously break my promise."

The air grew fragrant as they entered a square blotted out with tents. Masses of red and pink, of white and yellow, met the eye through sudden lanes in the petticoat crowd.

"Leave me now to my bargaining," she said. Stopping in the perfumed alley at a tent, where the swinging sign-board bore the name la Mère Boboche, she cried tartly: "Good morning, citoyenne. The flowers are very stale this morning."

A thin, bent woman turned her one good eye, and recognizing a daily opponent, rose, drawing in her lips and nodding.

"Eh, they are dear this morning, but you have brought your muscadin. You can pay well to-day after the way you cheated me yesterday."

"He is my brother," Louison said coldly, turning over the flowers.

"Oui dà!" La Mère Boboche dropped an anxious glance at her counter. "Isn't he handsome, though, her muscadin? What arms, what a chest, eh? Solid that!"

Louison, observing that Barabant was uneasy under this chaffing, was about to interpose when a shrill voice rose in taunt from the opposite stall.

"What a monster of immorality! Allons, la mère, it's time you forgot such things."

Instantly the two enemies let loose at each other floods of vituperation.

"Listen to the evil tongue!"

"Hark to the old hen, what a cackle!"

"Corrupter of youth!"

"Cheat!"

"Impostor!"

Louison, profiting by the outcry, selected her flowers and escaped the fray.

"Now for some white ones and I am done. Aïe, what a jam!"

She took his arm, and as they entered the press of the main alley, once or twice was swept up against him with great force.

"Pardon; aïe, aïe, pardon! What a scramble this morning!" She was swung face to face with her protector, her eyes matching his in height. They freed themselves and reached another shop.

"Thanks, citoyen; your arm is strong."

Louison, giving a look of admiration at his limbs, began her bargaining. Barabant, though aware of the artifices, resisted weakly the direct attack. With a new interest he studied the liberty-cap that flamed in the black, sinewy wave of her hair. She was dressed in a yellow bodice, falling to a short skirt of light-blue fustian. The ankles thus revealed were shapely, and attracted the eye with their bright bit of red stocking. He began to ask himself if she were not really beautiful, as he watched the figure, unusually erect, every motion of which was made with grace and ease.

Louison, observing Barabant's study, from time to time turned her head to send him a smile over her shoulder. Occasionally she frowned and, as though to discourage his examination, shook her head.

Barabant forgot the curious impression she first had made upon him. He saw only a face with great capabilities of expression: mobile, flexible, obeying the capricious thought. The eyes more than ever arrested his attention and baffled it. They opened to him a way; but when he looked it was as though penetrating into a vast darkness.

"Why do you look at me so?"

Barabant recovered to find Louison at his elbow, her purchase made, regarding him with amusement.

"You mystify me," he said frankly. "There is something about you I cannot place. What is it?"

She shook her head.

"Don't. Besides—Nicole."

"You have been very solicitous to leave me to Nicole," he said, with a smile. "You choose excellent means to gain your end."

He had expected to catch her confused and blushing. Instead, she discovered a row of white teeth, and nodding her head, said:

"Eh, you are not so slow after all." Before he could reply, she exclaimed, "Hello, there's mama!"

She indicated a wig-maker's, where, on the door-step, a woman of about thirty-five or-six was sitting, carding a wig. Despite the difference of ages, Barabant noticed a similarity in the color of the hair and in the span of the eyebrows.

"Good morning, mother!"

The woman raised her head, but as her glance reached them started back, as though from a feeling of repulsion, and immediately dropped her head.

"Thank you, I am well," Louison cried mockingly. "Good day, mother, we can't stop." She turned in perfect good humor to Barabant. "There's a model mother for you; no trouble at all!"

"And your father?" Barabant inquired, as much struck at her philosophic attitude as at the maternal indifference.

"There's the trouble, voilà." She held her thumb-nail against her teeth and clicked it. "She has never been willing to tell me his name." She shrugged her shoulders. "That's stupid, isn't it? Why not?"

Barabant asked her curiously how long they had been parted.

"Since I was five years old. I only remember some dreadful scene at home,—I don't know what,—and all at once her manner changed to me. The next day she drove me out."

"At five?"

"Nothing extraordinary in that," Louison answered, surprised at his astonishment. "Ah, you do not know our Paris. She married soon after; perhaps it was for that, but I think not." She was silent a moment. "I think she discovered something about my father: that he was an abbé or an aristocrat."

"And you?"

"I begged. I found a corner in the cellar at la Mère Corniche's. You have never been in that pleasant abode?" She made a wry face. "There are rats; you don't get much sleep. Then it smells bad and it is black; though of course at night that makes no difference. I did not stay there long."

"What did you do?"

"Oh, I passed from corner to corner." She stopped in the square and seated herself on a bench. She emptied her flowers and held them out to Barabant. "Hold these while I make my cockades. I passed from family to family. I was well treated. They gave me a crust or a bone, and let me crawl into a corner at night. Of course I worked. It was interesting!" She wove the flowers deftly into cockades, taking them from his lap, their hands brushing each other from time to time. "Does that amuse you? Good. Then I'll continue. At ten I began to sell flowers, and then they treated me better—I shared meals."

"What a life! It must have been rough at times?" Barabant asked the question not without a mixture of curiosity in his pity.

"Yes, at first." She returned thoughtfully over her history. "But I stabbed a fellow who was annoying me. He lived, but the result was just as good. They are all afraid of my temper, and there is no protection like that." She rose, having finished the cockades, and faced him with a smile in which struggled a temptation. "You know I have a temper; oh, but a temper—a temper to make your hair stand on end!"

"I can believe it," Barabant said, studying her.

"Would you like to see?" she asked mischievously.

Without waiting a reply, she halted, caught her breath a little, and drew back. The mouth dropped open, the eyes fixed themselves. Then by the sheer power of her will she banished the blood from her face. The lips closed in a thin, cruel line, the nostrils dilated, while in the eyes glowed such malignant, tigerish hatred that Barabant, with an oath, sprang backward, placing the bench between them.

Immediately a low laugh rang out. The features changed from the hideousness of wrath to a look of amusement, and Louison, again erect, sidled up to him with a smile lurking in the corners of her lips.

"Did I frighten you? I like to do that." Her face had regained its composure, but it was a cold constraint; she was still pale from the force of the emotion. "It is so amusing to frighten people. You see, I am able to protect myself."

"That I can believe," Barabant cried, finding his voice. "It is unpleasant!"

"Don't be frightened; I reserve that for my enemies. I know how to please, also."

She laughed, amused at his horror.

"And now I must get to selling my cockades. You can return with me only as far as the Seine. A companion such as you, you understand, would never do; it would not be professional."

Arranging her cockades in the basket, which she transferred to her arm, she retraced her steps.

"Ah, there's mama again," she exclaimed, as they neared the wig-maker's. "Let's see if she'll greet us more cordially."

Suddenly she stopped and, with a gleam of mischief, caught his arm.

"I have an idea. Follow me. I'll make her speak."

They approached the woman on the step, who, after the first quick glance, abased her head without further recognition.

"Good morning, mother."

The woman continued silently to card the wig.

"Eh, Mother Baudrier! It is I, your daughter—Louison. You won't answer? Good-by, then." Louison turned as though to leave, calling back: "By the way, I've discovered my father."

The woman, with a cry, staggered to her feet, and, choking for utterance, fell back against the house; while in her eyes was the wild light of abject terror. Then perceiving by Louison's mocking laugh that it was a trick, without a word she gained the doorway and tottered into the house.

Louison, amazed and perplexed, remained fastened to the ground.

"Bon Dieu," she said at last, thoughtfully, "extraordinary! Who could he have been?"

Barabant echoed the question, while the memory of the scene sank into his mind, and with it a silent resolve to investigate the mystery further.