第7章

Mr.Ruck distinguished me, as the French say.He honoured me with his esteem, and, as the days elapsed, with a large portion of his confidence.Sometimes he bored me a little, for the tone of his conversation was not cheerful, tending as it did almost exclusively to a melancholy dirge over the financial prostration of our common country."No, sir, business in the United States is not what it once was," he found occasion to remark several times a day."There's not the same spring--there's not the same hopeful feeling.You can see it in all departments." He used to sit by the hour in the little garden of the pension, with a roll of American newspapers in his lap and his high hat pushed back, swinging one of his long legs and reading the New York Herald.He paid a daily visit to the American banker's, on the other side of the Rhone, and remained there a long time, turning over the old papers on the green velvet table in the middle of the Salon des Etrangers, and fraternising with chance compatriots.But in spite of these diversions his time hung heavily upon his hands.I used sometimes to propose to him to take a walk;but he had a mortal horror of pedestrianism, and regarded my own taste for it as' a morbid form of activity."You'll kill yourself, if you don't look out," he said, "walking all over the country.Idon't want to walk round that way; I ain't a postman!" Briefly speaking, Mr.Ruck had few resources.His wife and daughter, on the other hand, it was to be supposed, were possessed of a good many that could not be apparent to an unobtrusive young man.They also sat a great deal in the garden or in the salon, side by side, with folded hands, contemplating material objects, and were remarkably independent of most of the usual feminine aids to idleness--light literature, tapestry, the use of the piano.They were, however, much fonder of locomotion than their companion, and I often met them in the Rue du Rhone and on the quays, loitering in front of the jewellers' windows.They might have had a cavalier in the person of old M.Pigeonneau, who possessed a high appreciation of their charms, but who, owing to the absence of a common idiom, was deprived of the pleasures of intimacy.He knew no English, and Mrs.Ruck and her daughter had, as it seemed, an incurable mistrust of the beautiful tongue which, as the old man endeavoured to impress upon them, was pre-eminently the language of conversation.

"They have a tournure de princesse--a distinction supreme," he said to me."One is surprised to find them in a little pension, at seven francs a day.""Oh, they don't come for economy," I answered."They must be rich.""They don't come for my beaux yeux--for mine," said M.Pigeonneau, sadly."Perhaps it's for yours, young man.Je vous recommande la mere."I reflected a moment."They came on account of Mr.Ruck--because at hotels he's so restless."M.Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod."Of course he is, with such a wife as that--a femme superbe.Madame Ruck is preserved in perfection--a miraculous fraicheur.I like those large, fair, quiet women; they are often, dans l'intimite, the most agreeable.I'll warrant you that at heart Madame Ruck is a finished coquette.""I rather doubt it," I said.

"You suppose her cold? Ne vous y fiez pas!""It is a matter in which I have nothing at stake.""You young Americans are droll," said M.Pigeonneau; "you never have anything at stake! But the little one, for example; I'll warrant you she's not cold.She is admirably made.""She is very pretty."

"'She is very pretty!' Vous dites cela d'un ton! When you pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck, I hope that's not the way you do it.""I don't pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck.""Ah, decidedly," said M.Pigeonneau, "you young Americans are droll!"I should have suspected that these two ladies would not especially commend themselves to Madame Beaurepas; that as a maitresse de salon, which she in some degree aspired to be, she would have found them wanting in a certain flexibility of deportment.But I should have gone quite wrong; Madame Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with her new pensionnaires."I have no observation whatever to make about them," she said to me one evening."I see nothing in those ladies which is at all deplace.They don't complain of anything; they don't meddle; they take what's given them; they leave me tranquil.The Americans are often like that.Often, but not always," Madame Beaurepas pursued."We are to have a specimen to-morrow of a very different sort.""An American?" I inquired.

"Two Americaines--a mother and a daughter.There are Americans and Americans: when you are difficiles, you are more so than any one, and when you have pretensions--ah, per exemple, it's serious.Iforesee that with this little lady everything will be serious, beginning with her cafe au lait.She has been staying at the Pension Chamousset--my concurrent, you know, farther up the street; but she is coming away because the coffee is bad.She holds to her coffee, it appears.I don't know what liquid Madame Chamousset may have invented, but we will do the best we can for her.Only, I know she will make me des histoires about something else.She will demand a new lamp for the salon; vous alles voir cela.She wishes to pay but eleven francs a day for herself and her daughter, tout compris; and for their eleven francs they expect to be lodged like princesses.

But she is very 'ladylike'--isn't that what you call it in English?

Oh, pour cela, she is ladylike!"