Page:The fortunes of Fifi (IA fortunesoffifi00seawiala).pdf/54

 *pionet as long as Cartouche kept watch, like a wolf, over the lady. Separations always followed fast on Duvernet's marriages, and his three wives were in such various stages of divorce, that, as Cartouche said, Duvernet himself did not know exactly where he stood matrimonially. Of one thing only was he sure: that Fifi did not harbor designs upon him. And for this, and on account of her cleverness with her needle, which enabled her to convert her white cotton petticoat into a toga for the manager, in an emergency, Duvernet put up with her airs and graces.

Fifi tried a few of these same airs and graces on Cartouche, but Cartouche had the habit of command with her, and Fifi had the habit of obedience with him; so these little experimental haughtinesses on Fifi's part soon collapsed. Every night, when the performance was over, Cartouche would bring Fifi home, and after seeing that she was in her own little garret, retired to his, which was at the head of the stairs, and was the meanest and poorest of all the mean and poor rooms in the mean and poor lodging-house. But it was respectable; and to Cartouche, who had charged himself with the care of such a pair of sparkling dark eyes as Fifi's,