Zut and Other Parisians/Poire!

Poire!
Lieutenant Eugène Drouin slid from his saddle with a little grunt, slipped his arm through the bridle-rein, and then, with his riding crop, rapped smartly on the round, tin-topped table nearest to him. At the summons, a small square door on the left of the archway snapped open, and a stumpy waiter, shaped like a domino, appeared abruptly on the sill.

“Froid!” shouted the officer. The domino waiter made a vague gesture in the air with one fat hand, and then vanished as suddenly as he had appeared, closing the door behind him with a slam. If he had but seen fit to observe “Cuckoo!” the whole affair — the sort of châlet from which he emerged, the small square door, and his own performance — would have borne a remarkable resemblance to a Swiss clock striking one.

Lieutenant Drouin detached an end of the rein from the snaffle-bar, knotted it about the back of one chair and flung himself into another.

“Poof!” he said, and lit a cigarette.

It was exactly one o’clock, and the Pré Catalan was deserted, save for a half dozen cats of various breeds and colors, chasing each other about under the chairs and tables, and two brilliant macaws sitting on wooden perches in an apparent state of coma, broken only by an occasional reflective “Wawk!” Once, a high cart flashed in an opening of the trees to the left, and then disappeared with a rattle of harness chains, in the direction of the porte Dauphine. For the rest, there was nothing to suggest that Paris might not be fifty kilometres distant. All the world was at breakfast.

Eugène stretched his legs, squinted at the toes of his narrow riding boots, and swore tenderly at himself for having refused the invitation of the Marquise de Baucheron. Experience might have taught him that Rosa de Mirecourt would not be in the Bois that morning. It was a peculiarity of Rosa’s to be in evidence on every occasion when her presence was not to be desired, and never to turn up when one was in the mood to chat or breakfast with her. Eugène had measured the Acacias bridle-path at a canter eight times since noon, scanning the driveway for a glimpse of the blue and scarlet victoria with the cream-colored mares, and all in vain. Rosa was nowhere to be seen. By this time, no doubt, some other lieutenant of chasseurs was thrashing out the latest gossip of the demi-monde over her breakfast table in the rue de Bassano, and still another was, in all probability, filling his place at Madame de Baucheron’s, and eating the Friday breakfast — sole cardinale and œufs brouillés aux crevettes — for which her chef was famous. Baste! what a world!

The domino waiter reappeared presently in the doorway, came quickly across to Eugène’s table with a curious, tottering shuffle born of his swaddling apron, and served a small white mug of cold milk as if it had been Château Latour-Blanche.

“Beautiful weather, my lieutenant,” he ventured cheerfully, for he had done his service, and knew the meaning of the single epaulette.

But Eugène was in no mood for light conversation. For sole reply, he paid his score, and then drank the milk slowly, looking out toward the lower lake, across the wide stretch of fresh grass mottled with flecks of sunlight sifted through the foliage above. At his side Vivandière nuzzled the turf along the border of the graveled terrasse, the lithe muscles rippling in her polished neck, and her deep eye shifting now and again in its socket as she looked doubtfully, almost pleadingly, toward her master. They were well known on the Allée and the bridle-path of the avenue du Bois, these two, — the young chasseur, tall, clean-cut, and slender, with a complexion like a girl’s, and the gayety of Polichinelle himself, in full red breeches and tunic of black and light blue; and the chestnut mare, nervous and alert, with her racing lines, and her long, leisurely gallop, superb in its suggestion of reserve speed and unflagging endurance.

The fates were kind to Lieutenant Eugène Drouin. Paris, spring, youth, an ample fortune, a commission in the chasseurs, good looks, a thoroughbred Arab, and a half dozen women frankly in love with him, — surely there was nothing lacking; and yet he knew that something was lacking, though he could not have said what, as he sat sprawling in his little iron chair at the Pré Catalan that morning.

He straightened himself suddenly, as she came up the driveway from the left, and then rose with a stiff salute, for, a pace or so behind, walked Vieux César, so-called by an irreverent garrison, leading two horses, one limping badly. Eugène had seen him but once, at the review of the Quatorze Juillet, but, though he was not in uniform now, the fierce gray mustache and keen black eyes of General Tournadour were too familiar to Parisians to pass unrecognized in a throng, much less under circumstances such as these. When one has been Military Governor of Paris, and held the portfolio of war, one does not achieve incognito merely by donning a black civile. So Eugène saluted the general — but with his eyes on the girl.

She was not beautiful, he told himself, in that first moment of surprise and swift observation, but about her, as she barely glanced at him in passing, there was an indefinably compellant charm which arrested his attention and held it, like an unrecognized but strangely sweet perfume, suddenly met with in a familiar spot where there is no apparent reason for its presence. Without doubt, it was a very little thing. He knew enough of such matters to be aware that an unanalyzed attraction of the kind which, at first glance, makes a woman appear utterly irresistible, is apt, on closer acquaintance, to resolve itself into the merest trifle of dissimilarity from other women, — a tilt of a lip-corner, a dimple in an unlikely spot, a trick with the hands or the head, a rebellious wisp of hair. For he was very philosophical, and very wise, was Eugène, and twenty-six years of age, into the bargain. So there was nothing one could tell him about women. But, in any event, there was no time to define the particular charm in question. He felt rather than saw it, as she went by him, with the faintest possible whiff of orris, and the gleam of a patent-leather boot at the edge of her habit. No, she was certainly not beautiful, but she was something dangerously, deliciously akin, said Lieutenant Drouin to himself; and that, in the unloveliest costume that can be worn by womankind, — a deep-green habit of extreme severity, and a squat derby, like a boy’s, with an elastic strap brutally grooving her ruddy hair.

General Tournadour did not follow the girl beyond the spot where Eugène was standing, but drew up abruptly, and indicated the lamed horse with a gesture of irritation.

“A beautiful affair, my word, lieutenant!” he said. “This animal stumbled, back there, and has received some injury, — I know not what. We have walked from the Allée, in hope of finding a sapin here, and all without result.”

The young officer was already feeling the animal’s hocks with a practiced hand. There was a swelling just above the right fore fetlock, and as he touched it, the horse winced and kicked out sharply.

“A bad wrench, I fear, my general,” said Eugène. “He should have an hour’s rest, at least.” Then, looking quickly at the saddle, “It is evident that madame cannot ride him home. No doubt they will give him a stall in the farm stable. You can send a groom out for him this afternoon.”

“Dieu! That is very well, monsieur,” answered the former minister of war, with an air of perplexity amusingly in contrast with his fierce moustache. “But my daughter” —

Now Lieutenant Drouin, in matters where a woman was concerned, was nothing if not adroit. He sent a flying glance in the direction of the girl. She had aroused one of the comatose macaws from his lethargy, and now stood watching him as he munched the biscuit she had taken from a neighboring table. And again Eugène was conscious of an inexplicable but very decided little thrill.

“If Mademoiselle Tournadour — if you, my general, will consider me at your service, I shall be glad to have you make use of my mare Vivandière, here. She is as gentle as a lamb — but, perhaps, not unworthy of being seen in company with your own horse.”

The General’s eyes twinkled at the boyishness of the remark. He knew a horse as well as another, Vieux César, and to describe the superb Arab before him as being, perhaps, not unworthy of being seen in company with his own sturdy charger was a bit of satire much to his relish.

“Merci!” he answered. “It is the proposal of an officer and a gentleman. But my daughter must decide if it is possible for us to accept it. In the matter of names, monsieur, you have me at an advantage.”

“Pardon!” said the other. “I should have realized that. I am Eugène Drouin, lieutenant of the 29th Chasseurs.”

“Natalie!” cried the General, beckoning with his crop.

As Mademoiselle Tournadour came forward, the young chasseur again made a confidant of himself, this time for the satisfaction of observing that he was an imbecile, and that a man who could not tell at the first glance whether or not a woman was entirely beautiful, deserved not to have an opportunity of discovering the fact at all. Their eyes met fairly, his glowing with delighted surprise, hers touched with that expression of negative inquiry and polite interest which immediately precedes an introduction.

“My daughter,” said the General, prodding the air with his crop in her direction. “Lieutenant Drouin, of the 29th Chasseurs,” he added, prodding again, in the direction of Eugène. “Monsieur le lieutenant has been so kind as to offer thee the use of his own horse, and suggests that we leave Le Cid here to be cared for until I can send Victor for him. I tell him thou art the one to decide.”

“Monsieur, you are truly kind,” said the girl easily — too easily, thought Eugène! — “but it would be to presume upon your generosity.”

“But it is nothing,” protested the officer. “Voyons! It is but a step to La Muette, and there I have the Ceinture!”

“You are stationed at the quartier de cavalerie?” asked Tournadour.

“Rue Desaix, yes, mon général,” answered Eugène. Then, turning again to the girl, “Surely you must consent, mademoiselle. It is the simplest way. And this afternoon, if you will permit me” —

“Yes,” put in the General, “and this afternoon Victor can leave your horse at the caserne as he is coming to take Le Cid.

“Eh, dis-donc, Natalie,” he added, fretfully, observing that the girl still hesitated. “Don’t make difficulties, my dear. There is breakfast — yes, breakfast to be considered, and it is one, and past. Since the lieutenant is so kind” —

“Since the lieutenant is so kind,” said his daughter with a smile, “eh bien, I accept.”

It was the work of a moment for Eugène to shift the side-saddle from Le Cid to Vivandière. The general had already mounted, and was gazing off toward the porte Dauphine, with his nose in the air, as if he scented breakfast from afar.

“She is very beautiful, monsieur, your Vivandière, and you are very good,” said Mademoiselle Tournadour, as the chasseur tightened the girth, after her boot had touched his hand, and she was in the saddle.

“She is very fortunate, mademoiselle,” answered Eugène, curiously embarrassed for one so skilled in compliment. “If she wins, I shall feel that she owes the race to this good omen.”

“The race?” said the girl.

“The Officers’ Steeple Chase at Auteuil, on Sunday.”

“You ride her yourself?”

There was a strange little note of more than casual interest in the question, and Eugène looked up suddenly. For the second time their eyes met.

“Yes,” he answered. “Why?”

“Why? But nothing, monsieur, except, perhaps, to wish you bonne chance.”

She touched Vivandière with her heel.

“Adieu, monsieur,” she added, “and a thousand thanks!”

Eugène bowed.

“For nothing,” he said, “and au revoir, mademoiselle!”

Then he watched them out of sight, with his arm through Le Cid’s bridle-rein, and his trim English saddle sprawling at his feet.

There was something delightfully ingenuous, to Eugène’s way of thinking, in Vieux César’s method of unloading the burden of his embarrassment on the shoulders of the first young lieutenant who crossed his path, and then riding off serenely to breakfast, leaving the other, as it were, to gather up and disentangle the loose ends of the situation. He was half amused, half annoyed that his offer of Vivandière had not been taken less as a matter of course; but, in view of the circumstances, he attended with fairly good grace to the details of stabling Le Cid, and arranging to send for his saddle, and then struck out at a swinging gait for the footpath to La Muette. For all of which there was a sufficient reason in the person of Mademoiselle Tournadour.

Now, as he revolved the meeting in his mind, he found that it was not in the least degree a surprise. Somehow, he had always expected that this girl would step suddenly into his life, with her ruddy hair and her gray eyes. It seemed to him to be something which the natural evolution of that life demanded. He had sounded every note in the gamut of emotions appropriate to a man in his position. He had had his serious, almost ascetic moods, his despondencies, his flights of folly, his impulses of stern ambition, his hours of morbid brooding and of reckless gayety. He could no longer number his love-affairs with any approach to accuracy. They were hopelessly jumbled in his memory, by very reason of their number and their triviality. Here and there, a face stood out from its fellows — the Baronne de Banis, Lady Mary Kaswellyn, Rosa de Mirecourt, or the Marquise de Baucheron — but none of these impelled him to regret. There were no entanglements, no uncomfortable circumstances to recall. Not a stone lay in the way of the gate of the future, as, in his imagination, it swung open before him. As we have said, the fates were kind to Lieutenant Eugène Drouin. The current of experience had borne his individual shallop over deeps and shallows safely and with a song, and, now that a sudden turn of the stream had shown him Natalie Tournadour waiting on the bank, it seemed to him to be the most natural thing imaginable, — something which intuition had taught him was inevitable, and, what was better, which experience told him was desirable. The event had found him ready and willing to make room for her beside him in the boat, and, so, continue the journey in her company, well content. He bowed to fate politely, with a graceful merci!

For forty-eight hours he watched, almost as if he had been a disinterested outsider, this pleasant fancy moulding the details of his future life. He reckoned his rentes anew, assigning a due proportion to a little hôtel in the Monceau quarter, to a villa at Houlgate, to horses, household expenses, his wife’s allowance, servants, entertainment, a month at Aix, another at Nice, a third at Hombourg. He saw himself retired, and in the Chambre. And over all hovered, like a luminous presiding angel, the presence of Mademoiselle Tournadour — Madame Drouin!

So Sunday came, and, with it, breakfast at Armenonville with two fellow officers, and the growing exhilaration of the approaching race. Eugène was in his gayest mood — for was not Vivandière not only the winner of last year’s Steeple Chase, but to-day in better form than she had ever been? But he allowed his good spirits to be touched, now and again, with a gentle, pleasurable melancholy, as the violins of the tziganes glided into the long, languorous swell of the Valse Bleue, and his handsome eyes clouded thoughtfully, and his fine mouth drooped, so that Gaston Cavaignac rallied him joyously upon the new affair, which alone could account for such tristesse. It lent an added zest, this. Eugène smiled, and was glad that in his denial of the charge rang so little of conviction.

The first race had been already run, as the three officers slipped through the main entrance of Auteuil, and made their way across the pesage, and past the betting booths, to the grass oval around which the horses, in charge of stable lads, were slowly circling. It was one of May’s clearest and most brilliant afternoons. The gravel pathways and stretches of vivid turf were thronged with the best known men and women of the two great Parisian worlds of sport and fashion, and the air rang with gay gossip and spirited discussion. But Eugène had ears for none of this, and eyes but for two things, — Vivandière, blanketed, and swinging around the oval with her long, sure stride, and Natalie Tournadour, in a delicious gown of soft blue, standing at the side of Vieux César. Life, at that moment, was good to live. The chasseur drew a quick breath of pleased surprise. She was there, then, to see him win. He might have known!

A mixture of sudden, unfamiliar embarrassment and boyish vanity caused him to avoid her eye as he made a turn of the oval, consulting with his stable lad about the mare’s condition; but he held himself very straight, and was pleasantly conscious that his tunic was new, and his boots a veritable triumph of Coquillot’s. When he went back to his companions his eyes were glowing.

“Content?” asked Cavaignac.

“Je te crois, mon vieux!” he answered. “One never can say, but it is certain that no one has a better chance. She is perfection!”

“There is the white,” put in Lieutenant Mors, dubiously.

Eugène vouchsafed the rival racer a brief, contemptuous glance. It was a lean, powerfully built brute, with an astonishing reach to even the leisurely stride with which he paced the oval. A trainer would have had something to say of those lithe shoulders, and that long barrel, dwindling along the flanks, and that easy swing of haunch and swathed hock. But Eugène was not a trainer.

“A fine animal,” he observed, carelessly, “but there is no comparison. One has only to look at Vivandière.”

“Tiens!” cried Gaston, “the saddling-bell! I am off to put five louis on you gagnant, and five placé. Bonne chance, vieux!”

In truth, the saddling-bell was jangling from the little pavilion to the left, and the officers hurrying forward to weigh in. As he passed into the enclosure, Eugène glanced over his shoulder. General Tournadour and his daughter were still standing at the oval-side, and he had a glimpse of Natalie clapping her hands and pointing, as the stable lad slipped the blanket off Vivandière. But he made no sign, even when, three minutes later, he mounted, within five metres of where they stood. Time enough, when the victory was won, to claim his reward in the gray eyes of which he had been dreaming. His heart leaped, nevertheless, as he gave Vivandière the rein. It was the voice of Vieux César, almost at his side: —

“Be not afraid, ma petite. There is no doubt that he is going to win.”

No doubt, indeed, with her eyes upon him, and her heart praying for his success!

Once upon the course, he swept the vast enclosure with a glance, and his blood danced with the excitement of the moment, and the brilliancy of the scene. To the right the great tribunes of the pesage, and the chair-dotted turf in front, glowed with a shifting rainbow of spring gowns and vivid parasols, and sparkled with a myriad white waistcoats, drifting, like large, lazy snowflakes, to and fro; to the left lay the vast enclosure of the pelouse, flooded with dazzling sunlight, its thousands circling here and there like ants. Beyond, the race-course swept away, smooth and green, to the long rows of trees in their new foliage, banked along the route de Boulogne and the allée des Fortifications. It was a day of days, whether one stood inside the rail, straining for a glimpse of the horses, or swept slowly to the left, on the course itself, toward the starting point, with a thoroughbred’s flanks quivering between one’s knees!

As the horses circled about the start, getting into position, Eugène’s keen, handsome eyes were busy with trivial details, dwindled by distance to mere specks, — two men, leaning far over the rails, signaling bets to each other across the track, a gleam of orange from the finish flag, the starter rocking toward him on a ridiculously fat pony. Then, in an instant, every faculty came taut like a stretched string, and they were off, in a thunder of hoofs and a whirl of flying sod. He saw a red flag fluttering stiffly in the breeze as he swept past, and heard, in the distance, the whirr of the signal gong from the judge’s stand. It was a fair start. He touched Vivandière lightly with his hand, and, at the signal, felt her lengthen under him into her long, magnificent gallop. The tribunes and the crowded pelouse rushed down upon him with a murmur of many voices. The long double line of faces at the rail slid past like white dots, and the dark green hedge of the water-jump sprang out of the track at his feet. Houp, ma belle! A whish of brushed twigs, a gleam of silver water passing under, a thud of hoofs on the soft turf beyond, and they were over, and away into the southern loop to the left!

As he swung to the north again, he saw the ants of the pelouse scurrying across to the rail along the transverse cut. Let them run, les drôles! They had need to if they would see the passing of Vivandière! Past the high hurdle — so much the better that one did not have to take it! — and down the transverse to the second water-jump. It was easy, that. The mare crossed it like a bird, and Eugène saw the tribunes again from the corner of his eye. and laughed at the shrill “Bravo!” of a little grisette in a red hat, who flew past him, leaning on the rail.

Vivandière was well into the left reach of the northern loop before Eugène fairly realized what that smooth, empty width of turf before him meant. He was leading, — had been leading from the very start! And somewhere, back there in the gay throng of the pesage, two gray eyes were watching him, straining to catch each movement of the blue tunic, each bound of the gallant mare. He threw back his head and laughed at the clear, wide sky. It was very good to be alive!

So, with a broad sweep to the right, into the home stretch, the last curve of the giant “8” he had described. It lay ahead, full and fair, cut by one low hedge. And then —

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The sound battered its way into the chasseur’s understanding, and hurt as if it had been, in verity, that of blow on blow. He leaned forward, spurring the mare to her utmost endeavor. And she responded, but still the beat of following hoofs grew louder. For Vivandière was thoroughbred, and she had kept her maddest pace from the start. It was reserved for racers of ignobler spirit to hold their greatest effort for the end.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Once more pesage and pelouse rushed down upon him, not now with a murmur of voices, but with a mighty roar, that swelled, deafening, into his ears.

“Flambeau! Flambeau! C’est Flambeau qui gagne!”

There was a gasp of short-coming breath at his elbow, a gleam of white, tense neck, a flash of red breeches and of polished boots, and the Steeple Chase Militaire was run, with Vivandière second, and the lean, white Flambeau winner by a length.

The officers rode back slowly, past the applauding tribunes. Eugène saw dimly that it was a colonel of infantry who rode Flambeau, a metre ahead of him, but his thoughts were more for Natalie than for himself or his successful competitor. Poor little girl! She had been so anxious for his victory, and no doubt so confident, after the brave words of Vieux César. But, after all, — second! It was not so bad in a field of twelve. But he had been wrong not to speak to her before he mounted. Well, he would atone for that, never fear! Moreover, when once they were married, he would give her Vivandière — the cause of their first meeting — the reason of their present sympathy! It was a good thought.

Eugène did not find the general and his daughter readily in the vast throng in the pesage. Three times he made the circuit of the tribunes, scanning the tiers of seats, and threading his way through the little wooden chairs upon the turf in front. Once he passed Cavaignac and Mors, walking arm in arm, who swore at him picturesquely for his defeat. Vivandière had paid but seventeen francs fifty placé, and so they had only seventy-five to show for the five louis they had placed upon her gagnant. The privilege of calling her master tête de laitue was but trifling recompense, and they strolled on, surprised that one noted for his eloquence in this variety of obloquy did not deign to reply.

Finally, at the doors of the little refreshment pavilion, and talking with a colonel of infantry, he found the objects of his quest, and went up eagerly, saluting. Vieux César greeted him with heartiness.

“Ah, lieutenant! Our preserver of Friday — quoi? Natalie, see who is here — our preserver of Friday!”

The girl was radiant. Her cheeks were flushed, and the gray eyes shone with a brightness that set Eugène’s heart pounding so hard that he felt its throbbing must be dimpling the breast of his tunic.

“What a magnificent race!” she said, giving him her hand. “You have cause to be proud of Vivandière. It is something to have ridden such a horse.”

“It is always something to ride a good horse,” said Eugène, looking into her eyes, “and it is something, also, to be second in a good race, but it is more to be first. And I had my reasons for wishing to be that, mademoiselle.”

Natalie smiled.

“Ah, sans doute!” she answered. “But you must not call me mademoiselle, monsieur. You must know that since yesterday I am a serious married woman. And what is more, my husband rode Flambeau! Am I not a veritable mascotte?”

She laid her hand on the arm of the officer at her side.

“My husband, Colonel Montrésor,” she added. “Paul, this is the officer of whom I spoke to you — who was so kind Lieutenant” —

She turned to Eugène, blushing divinely, with an embarrassed little laugh.

“Oh, pray forgive me!” she said. “I am so stupid — but — but — I have forgotten your name!”