“You would hardly believe me, M. Piquedent, I have met the little laundress! You know the one I mean, the one with the basket, and I have spoken to her!”
“What did she say to you?”
“She said—good heavens—she told me … that she liked the look of you. In fact, I believe … I believe … she is a little bit in love with you. …”
I saw him turn pale; he replied:
“She is laughing at me, no doubt. Things like that do not happen at my age.”
I said in a serious tone:
“Why not? You are very presentable!”
I felt he was taken in by my scheme, and so I said no more.
But every day I pretended that I had met the girl and spoken to her about him; so successful was I that he ended by believing me and by sending her ardent and convinced kisses.
Then it happened one morning that I really did meet her on my way to school. I stepped up to her on the spot as if I had known her for ten years.
“Good day, Mademoiselle. How are you?”
“Very well, thanks, sir!”
“Would you like a cigarette?”
“Oh! not in the street.”
“You can smoke it at home.”
“Then I should like one.”
“I say, Mademoiselle, you don’t know—”
“What don’t I know?”
“The old man, my old teacher …”
“Daddy Piquedent?”
“Yes, Daddy Piquedent. So you know his name?”
“I should say I did. Well?”
“Well, then, he is in love with you.”
She began to laugh wildly, and cried:
“What a lark!”
“Not at all, it’s no lark. He talks about you all the lesson hour. I bet he’d marry you!”
She stopped laughing. The thought of marriage sobers all girls. Then she repeated, still incredulous:
“What a lark!”
“I swear it’s true.”
She picked up the basket lying at her feet.
“Very well, we shall see,” said she.
And she went away.
No sooner had I entered the school than I took Daddy Piquedent on one side:
“You must write to her, she is out of her wits about you.”
And he wrote a long letter, sweetly tender, full of phrases and periphrases, of metaphors and comparisons, of philosophy and scholastic gallantry, a true masterpiece of burlesque grace, which I undertook to deliver to the young person.
She read it gravely, with emotion, and then she murmured:
“How well he writes! You can see he has had an education! Is it true that he would marry me?”
I answered boldly:
“I should say so! He is off his head about it!”
“Then he must invite me to dinner on Sunday at the Isle of Flowers.”
I promised that she should get an invitation.
Daddy Piquedent was very much moved by all that I told him about her. I added:
“She loves you, M. Piquedent; and I believe her to be a respectable girl. You must not seduce her and leave her in misery!”
He answered with decision:
“I myself am a respectable man, my friend.”
I had not, I own, any plan. I was planning a hoax, a schoolboy hoax, nothing more. I had guessed the simplicity of the old usher, his innocence and his weakness. I was amusing myself without a thought of the consequences. I was eighteen, and I had had the reputation in the school of a sly dog for a long time.
So it was agreed that Daddy Piquedent and I should take a fly to the boathouse at the Cow’s Tail, where we would find Angela, and that I should row them up in my boat, for at that time I had a boat. I was to take them then to the Isle of Flowers, where we would all three have dinner. I had insisted on being there, to enjoy my success, and the old fellow accepted my plan, proving beyond doubt that he had lost his head, by running the risk of dismissal.
When we got to the quay, where my boat had been moored since the morning, I saw in the grass, or rather above the high herbage of the brink, an enormous red umbrella like a gigantic toadstool. Under the umbrella was the little laundress in her Sunday best. I was surprised, she was really very nice, though a little on the pale side, and graceful, even though she had rather a suburban air.
Daddy Piquedent took off his hat with a bow. She held out her hand, and they looked at each other without saying a word. Then they got into the boat and I took the oars.
They were sitting side by side in the stern.
The old fellow spoke first:
“What pleasant weather for a jaunt on the river!”
“Oh, yes,” she murmured.
She let her hand drag in the stream, skimming the water with her fingers, that raised a thin translucent sheet like a blade of glass, making a tiny noise, a pleasant lapping along the sides of the boat.
When we were in the restaurant, she found her voice again, and ordered the dinner: whitebait, a chicken, and salad; afterwards she took us for a walk on the island, which she knew thoroughly.
She was lighthearted now, playful, and even a little inclined to mockery.
Until dessert, nothing was said about love. I had provided some champagne, and Daddy Piquedent had taken too much. A little excited herself, she called him: M. Piquenez.
Without any preparation, he said:
“Mademoiselle, M. Raoul has told you my feelings.”
She became as serious as a judge.
“Yes, sir!”
“Do you feel any response to them?”
“People don’t answer such questions!”
He heaved with emotion and went on:
“But will a day come when I could please you?”
She smiled:
“You great stupid! You are very nice.”
“But, Mademoiselle, do you think that later we could …”
She hesitated a second, then, with a trembling voice, said: “It is marriage you mean when you say that, isn’t it? Otherwise nothing doing, you know?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle!”
“Very well, all right, M. Piquenez!”
And thus it happened that these two chuckle-heads resolved to get married to each other, by the machinations of a careless boy. But I did not believe it serious, nor perhaps did they. A thought occurred to her.
“You know, I have nothing, not a
