The Ink-Stain (Tache d'encre) Part 11

"My good Fabien, you ought to know that when I am obstinate I have my reasons, like Balaam's a.s.s. You will not see my sketch-book to-day, nor to-morrow, nor the day after."

I answered with foolish warmth:

"Please yourself; I don't care."

Really I was very much annoyed, and I was rather cool with Lamp.r.o.n when we parted on the platform.

What has come to the fellow? To refuse to show me a sketch he had made before my eyes, and a sketch of Jeanne, too!

April 28th, 9 A.M.

Hide your sketches, Sylvestre; stuff them away in your portfolios, or your pockets; I care little, for I bear Jeanne's image in my heart, and can see it when I will, and I love her, I love her, I love her!

What is to become of her and of me I can not tell. I hope without knowing what or why, or when, and hope alone is comforting.

9 P.M.

This afternoon, at two o'clock, I met Lamp.r.o.n in the Boulevard St.

Michel. He was walking fast with a portfolio under his arm. I went up to him. He looked annoyed, and hardly seemed pleased when I offered to accompany him. I grew red and angry.

"Oh, very well," I said; "good-by, then, since you don't care to be seen with me."

He pondered a moment.

"Oh, come along if you like; I am going to my framemaker's."

"A picture?"

"Something of the kind."

"And that's all the mystery! Yesterday it was a sketch I mustn't look at; to-day it's a picture. It is not nice of you, Sylvestre; no, decidedly it is not nice."

He gave me a look of friendly compa.s.sion.

"Poor little chap!" said he.

Then, in his usual clear, strong voice:

"I am in a great hurry; but come if you like. I would rather it were four days later; but as it is, never mind; it is never too soon to be happy."

When Lamp.r.o.n chooses to hold his tongue it is useless to ask him questions. I gave myself up to meditating on the words, "It is never too soon to be happy."

We went down the boulevard, past the beer-houses. There is distinction in my friend's walk; he is not to be confused with the crowd through which he pa.s.ses. You can tell, from the simple seriousness of the man, his indifference to the noise and petty incidents of the streets, that he is a stout and n.o.ble soul. Among the pa.s.sers-by he is a somebody. I heard from a group of students seated before a cafe the following words, which Sylvestre did not seem to notice:

"Look, do you see the taller of those two there? That's Sylvestre Lamp.r.o.n."

"Prix du Salon two years ago?"

"A great gun, you know."

"He looks it."

"To the left," said Lamp.r.o.n.

We turned to the left, and found ourselves in the Rue Hautefeuille, before a shabby house, within the porch of which hung notices of apartments to let; this was the framemaker's. The pa.s.sage was dark, the walls were chipped by the innumerable removals of furniture they had witnessed. We went upstairs. On the fourth floor a smell of glue and sour paste on the landing announced the tenant's profession. To make quite certain there was a card nailed to the door with "Plumet, Frame-Maker."

"Plumet? A newly-married couple?"

But already Madame Plumet is at the door. It is the same little woman who came to Boule's office. She recognizes me in the dim light of the staircase.

"What, Monsieur Lamp.r.o.n, do you know Monsieur Mouillard?"

"As you apparently do, too, Madame Plumet."

"Oh, yes! I know him well; he won my action, you know."

"Ah, to be sure-against the cabinet-maker. Is your husband in?"

"Yes, sir, in the workshop. Plumet!"

Through the half-opened door giving access to an inner room we could see-in the midst of his molders, gilders, burnishers, and framers--a little dark man with a beard, who looked up and hurriedly undid the strings of his working-ap.r.o.n.

"Coming, Marie!"

Little Madame Plumet was a trifle upset at having to receive us in undress, before she had tidied up her rooms. I could see it by her blushes and by the instinctive movement she made to smooth her disordered curls.

The husband had hardly answered her call before she left us and went off to the end of the room, into the obscure recesses of an alcove overcrowded with furniture. There she bent over an oblong object, which I could not quite see at first, and rocked it with her hand.

"Monsieur Mouillard," said she, looking up to me--"Monsieur Mouillard, this is my son, Pierre!"

What tender pride in those words, and the smile which accompanied them!

With a finger she drew one of the curtains aside. Under the blue muslin, between the pillow and the white coverlet, I discovered two little black eyes and a tuft of golden hair.

"Isn't he a little rogue!" she went on, and began to caress the waking baby.

Meanwhile Sylvestre had been talking to Plumet at the other end of the room.

"Out of the question," said the frame-maker; "we are up to our knees in arrears; twenty orders waiting."

"I ask you to oblige me as a friend."

"I wish I could oblige you, Monsieur Lamp.r.o.n; but if I made you a promise, I should not be able to keep it."

"What a pity! All was so well arranged, too. The sketch was to have been hung with my two engravings. Poor Fabien! I was saving up a surprise for you. Come and look here."

I went across. Sylvestre opened his portfolio.

"Do you recognize it?"