Mlle. Fouchette Part 31

"Pauvrette! Come! Let us celebrate this happy reunion," said the other, grasping Fouchette's arm and striding along the bridge. "You shall tell me everything, dear."

"But, Mademoiselle--er----"

"Madeleine,--just Madeleine, Fouchette."

"Mademoiselle Madeleine----"

"I live over here,--au Quartier Latin. It is the only place--the place to see life. It is Paris! C'est la vie joyeuse!"

"Ah! then you no longer live at----"

"Let us begin here, Fouchette," interrupted Mlle. Madeleine, gravely, "and let us never talk about Charenton,--never! It cannot be a pleasant subject to you,--it is painful to me."

"Oh, pardon me, mademoiselle, I----"

"So it is understood, is it not?"

"With all my heart, mademoiselle!" said Fouchette, not sorry to conclude such a desirable bargain.

"Very good. We begin here----"

"Now."

"Yes, and as if we had never before seen or heard of each other."

"Exactly."

"Good! Now, what are you doing for a living, Fouchette?"

"Nothing."

"Good! So am I."

They laughed quite a great deal at this remarkable coincidence as they went along. And when Mlle. Fouchette protested that she must do something,--sewing, or something,--Mlle. Madeleine laughed yet more loudly, though Mlle. Fouchette saw nothing humorous in the situation.

"n.o.body works in the Quartier Latin," said Madeleine. "C'est la vie joyeuse."

"But one must eat, mademoiselle----"

"Very sure! Yes, and drink; but----"

Mlle. Madeleine scrutinized her companion closely,--evidently Mlle.

Fouchette was in earnest. Such navete in a ragpicker was absurd, preposterous!

"Well, there are the studios," suggested Madeleine.

"The--the studios?"

"Yes,--the painters, you know; only models are a drug in the market here----"

"Models?"

"Yes; and, then, unless one has the figure----" she glanced at Fouchette doubtfully. "I'm getting too stout for anything but Roman mothers, Breton peasants, etc. You're too thin even for an angel or ballet dancer."

"I'm sure I'd rather be a danseuse than an angel," said Fouchette,--"that is, if I've got any choice in the matter."

"But one hasn't. You've got to pose in whatever character they want.

Did you ever pose?"

"As a painter's model? Never."

Having ensconced themselves in a popular cafe restaurant on Boulevard St. Michel, the pair ordered an appetizing dejeuner, and Madeleine proceeded to enlighten Fouchette on the subject of the profession,--the character and peculiarities of various artists, their exactions of models, the recompense for holding a certain pose for a given time, the difficulty and art of resuming exactly the same pose, the studios for cla.s.ses in the nude, the students generally and their pranks and games,--especially upon this latter branch of the business.

Mlle. Fouchette listened to all this with breathless interest, as may be imagined. For it was the opening up of a new world to her. The vivid description of the dancing and fun at the Bal Bullier filled her with delight and enthusiasm. She mentally vowed Madeleine as charming and condescending as ever. The girl had volunteered, good-naturedly, to make the rounds of the studios with her and get her "on the list."

When Madeleine offered to engineer Fouchette's debut at the Bullier the latter cheerfully paid for the repast the other had rather lavishly ordered.

The mere chance rencontre had changed Fouchette's entire plan of life.

She had bravely started for the grand boulevards with the idea of securing employment among the myriad dressmaking establishments of that neighborhood, and thus putting to practical use her industrial knowledge gained at Le Bon Pasteur.

Fortunately for her, Monsieur Marot's generous liberality had placed her beyond immediate need. A matron had equipped her with a new though simple costume and had given her a sum of money as she left,--merely saying that she acted according to instructions; but Fouchette felt that it was from her prince.

It was on the advice of Madeleine that Fouchette had secured this place in the Rue St. Jacques.

"It will make you independent and respected," said the practical grisette. "You've got the money now; you won't have it after a while.

Take my advice,--fix the place up,--gradually, don't you know? You'll soon make friends who will help you if you're smart; and one must have a place to receive friends, n'est-ce pas? And the hotels garnis rob one shamefully!"

And, while Mlle. Fouchette did not dream of the real significance of this advice, she took it. The details were hers. She knew the value of a sou about as well as any woman in Paris, and no instructions were required on the subject of expenditures. She collected, piece by piece, at bottom prices, those articles which had to be purchased; made, st.i.tch by st.i.tch, such as required the needle.

To Mlle. Fouchette the simple, cheaply furnished and somewhat tawdry little room in the Rue St. Jacques was luxury. She was proud of it.

She was perfectly contented with it. It was home.

With the confidence of one who has seen the worst and for whom every change must be for the better, Fouchette had succeeded where others would have been discouraged. This confidence to others often seemed reckless indifference, and consequently carried a certain degree of conviction.

Among a certain cla.s.s of wild young men and confirmed Bohemians Fouchette had quickly achieved a sort of vogue which attaches to an eccentric woman in Paris. She was eccentric in that she danced eccentric dances, was the most reckless in the sportive circle, the highest kicker at the Bullier, and, most of all, in that she had no lovers. Unlike the Mimi Pinsons of the Murger era of the quarter, Fouchette was the most notorious of grisettes without being a grisette. At the fete of the student painters at the Bullier she had been borne on a palanquin clad only in a garland of roses amid thousands of vociferous young people of both s.e.xes. The same night she had kicked a young man's front teeth out for presuming on liberties other girls of her set would have considered trifling.

Fouchette at once became the reigning sensation of "la vie joyeuse."

Having had little or no pleasure in the world up to her entree here, she had plunged into the gayety of the quarter with an abandon that within two short months had made the Bohemian tales of Henri Murger tame reading.

Her pedal dexterity in a quarrel had won for her the sobriquet of "La Savatiere."

The "savate" as practised by the French boxer is the art of using the feet the same as the hands, and it is a means of offence not to be despised. It is the feline art that utilizes all four limbs in combat.

Fouchette acquired it in her infancy,--in the fun and frequent scrimmages of the quarter she found occasion to practise it. Mlle.

Fouchette's temper was as eccentric as her dances.

On the wall of Mlle. Fouchette's room hung a rude crayon of that damsel by a prominent caricaturist. It was a front view of her face, in which the artist had maliciously accentuated, in a few bold strokes, the feline fulness of jaws, the half-contracted eyelids, the alert eyes, and general catlike expression,--to be seen only when Mlle. Fouchette was in anger. It was the subtle touch of the master, and was labelled "La Pet.i.te Chatte."

"Ah, ce!" she would say to curious visitors,--"it is not me; it is the mind of Leandre."