第13章

"She has demanded a new lamp; I told you she would!" This communication was made me by Madame Beaurepas a couple of days later.

"And she has asked for a new tapis de lit, and she has requested me to provide Celestine with a pair of light shoes.I told her that, as a general thing, cooks are not shod with satin.That poor Celestine!""Mrs.Church may be exacting," I said, "but she is a clever little woman.""A lady who pays but five francs and a half shouldn't be too clever.

C'est deplace.I don't like the type."

"What type do you call Mrs.Church's?"

"Mon Dieu," said Madame Beaurepas, "c'est une de ces mamans comme vous en avez, qui promenent leur fille.""She is trying to marry her daughter? I don't think she's of that sort."But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea."She is trying it in her own way; she does it very quietly.She doesn't want an American;she wants a foreigner.And she wants a mari serieux.But she is travelling over Europe in search of one.She would like a magistrate.""A magistrate?"

"A gros bonnet of some kind; a professor or a deputy.""I am very sorry for the poor girl," I said, laughing.

"You needn't pity her too much; she's a sly thing.""Ah, for that, no!" I exclaimed."She's a charming girl."Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin."She has hooked you, eh? But the mother won't have you."I developed my idea, without heeding this insinuation."She's a charming girl, but she is a little odd.It's a necessity of her position.She is less submissive to her mother than she has to pretend to be.That's in self-defence; it's to make her life possible.""She wishes to get away from her mother," continued Madame Beaurepas.

"She wishes to courir les champs."

"She wishes to go to America, her native country.""Precisely.And she will certainly go."

"I hope so!" I rejoined.

"Some fine morning--or evening--she will go off with a young man;probably with a young American."

"Allons donc!" said I, with disgust.

"That will be quite America enough," pursued my cynical hostess."Ihave kept a boarding-house for forty years.I have seen that type.""Have such things as that happened chez vous?" I asked.

"Everything has happened chez moi.But nothing has happened more than once.Therefore this won't happen here.It will be at the next place they go to, or the next.Besides, here there is no young American pour la partie--none except you, Monsieur.You are susceptible, but you are too reasonable.""It's lucky for you I am reasonable," I answered."It's thanks to that fact that you escape a scolding!"One morning, about this time, instead of coming back to breakfast at the pension, after my lectures at the Academy, I went to partake of this meal with a fellow-student, at an ancient eating-house in the collegiate quarter.On separating from my friend, I took my way along that charming public walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a shady terrace, of immense elevation, overhanging a portion of the lower town.There are spreading trees and well-worn benches, and over the tiles and chimneys of the ville basse there is a view of the snow-crested Alps.On the other side, as you turn your back to the view, the promenade is overlooked by a row of tall, sober-faced hotels, the dwellings of the local aristocracy.I was very fond of the place, and often resorted to it to stimulate my sense of the picturesque.Presently, as I lingered there on this occasion, Ibecame aware that a gentleman was seated not far from where I stood, with his back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was brilliant and distinct, and a newspaper, unfolded, in his lap.He was not reading, however; he was staring before him in gloomy contemplation.

I don't know whether I recognised first the newspaper or its proprietor; one, in either case, would have helped me to identify the other.One was the New York Herald; the other, of course, was Mr.

Ruck.As I drew nearer, he transferred his eyes from the stony, high-featured masks of the gray old houses on the other side of the terrace, and I knew by the expression of his face just how he had been feeling about these distinguished abodes.He had made up his mind that their proprietors were a dusky, narrow-minded, unsociable company; plunging their roots into a superfluous past.Iendeavoured, therefore, as I sat down beside him, to suggest something more impersonal.

"That's a beautiful view of the Alps," I observed.

"Yes," said Mr.Ruck, without moving, "I've examined it.Fine thing, in its way--fine thing.Beauties of nature--that sort of thing.We came up on purpose to look at it.""Your ladies, then, have been with you?"

"Yes; they are just walking round.They're awfully restless.They keep saying I'm restless, but I'm as quiet as a sleeping child to them.It takes," he added in a moment, drily, "the form of shopping.""Are they shopping now?"

"Well, if they ain't, they're trying to.They told me to sit here a while, and they'd just walk round.I generally know what that means.

But that's the principal interest for ladies," he added, retracting his irony."We thought we'd come up here and see the cathedral; Mrs.

Church seemed to think it a dead loss that we shouldn't see the cathedral, especially as we hadn't seen many yet.And I had to come up to the banker's any way.Well, we certainly saw the cathedral.Idon't know as we are any the better for it, and I don't know as Ishould know it again.But we saw it, any way.I don't know as Ishould want to go there regularly; but I suppose it will give us, in conversation, a kind of hold on Mrs.Church, eh? I guess we want something of that kind.Well," Mr.Ruck continued, "I stepped in at the banker's to see if there wasn't something, and they handed me out a Herald.""I hope the Herald is full of good news," I said.

"Can't say it is.D-d bad news."

"Political," I inquired, "or commercial?""Oh, hang politics! It's business, sir.There ain't any business.

It's all gone to,"--and Mr.Ruck became profane."Nine failures in one day.What do you say-to that?""I hope they haven't injured you," I said.