The Aspirations of Jean Servien | Page 7

any definite tune. What drew Jean's eyes above all was her hair, arranged in some fashion that struck him with a sense of mystery and beauty.
She looked round, and smoothing the lace of her peignoir with one hand:
"You are Edgar's friend?" she asked, in a cordial tone, though her voice struck Jean as harsh in this beautiful room that was perfumed like a church.
"Yes, Madame."
"You like being at school?"
"Yes, madame."
"The masters are not too strict?"
"No, Madame."
"You have no mother?"
As she put the question Madame Evans' voice softened.
"No, Madame."
"What is your father?"
"A bookbinder, Madame"--and the bookbinder's son blushed as he gave the answer. At that moment he would gladly have consented never to see his father more, his father whom he loved, if by the sacrifice he could have passed for the son of a Captain in the Navy or a Secretary of Embassy. He suddenly remembered that one of his fellow-pupils was the son of a celebrated physician whose portrait was displayed in the stationers' windows.
If only he had had a father like that to tell Madame Ewans of! But that was out of the question--and how cruelly unjust it was! He felt ashamed of himself, as if he had said something shocking.
But his friend's mother seemed quite unaffected by the dreadful avowal. She was still moving her hands at random up and down the keyboard. Then presently:
"You must enjoy yourself finely to-day, boys," she cried. "We will all go out. Shall I take you to the fair at Saint-Cloud?"
Yes, Edgar was all for going, because of the roundabouts.
Madame Ewans rose from the piano, patted her pale flaxen hair in place with a pretty gesture, and gave a sidelong look in the mirror as she passed.
"I'm going to dress," she told them; "I shall not be long."
While she was dressing, Edgar sat at the piano trying to pick out a tune from an opera bouffe, and Jean, perched uncomfortably on the edge of his chair, stared about the room at a host of strange and sumptuous objects that seemed in some mysterious way to be part and parcel of their beautiful owner, and affected him almost as strangely as she herself had done.
Preceded by a faint waft of scent and a rustle of silk, she reappeared, tying the strings of the hat that made a dainty diadem above her smiling eyes.
Edgar looked at her curiously:
"Why, mother, there's something... I don't know what. . . something that alters you."
She glanced in the mirror, examining her hair, which showed pale violet shadows amid the flaxen plaits.
"Oh! it's nothing," she said; "only I have put some powder in my hair. Like the Empress," she added, and broke into another smile.
As she was drawing on her gloves, a ring was heard, and the maid came in to tell her mistress that Monsieur Delbèque was waiting to see her.
Madame Ewans pouted and declared she could not receive him, whereupon the maid spoke a few words in a very peremptory whisper. Madame Ewans shrugged her shoulders.
"Stay where you are!" she told the boys, and passed into the dining-room, whence the murmur of two voices could presently be heard.
Jean asked Edgar, under his breath, who the gentleman was.
"Monsieur Delbèque," Edgar informed him. "He keeps horses and a carriage. He deals in pigs. One evening he took us to the theatre, mother and me."
Jean was surprised and rather shocked to find Monsieur Delbèque dealt in pigs. But he hid his surprise and asked if he was a relation.
"Oh! no," said Edgar, "he's one of our friends. It's a long time... at least a year we have known him."
Jean, harking back to his first idea, put the question:
"Have you ever seen him selling his pigs?"
"How stupid you are!" retorted Edgar; "he deals in them wholesale. Mother says it's a famous trade. He has a cigar-holder with an amber mouthpiece and a woman all naked carved in meerschaum. Just think, the other day he came and told mother his wife was making him atrocious scenes."
Madame Ewans put in her head at the half-open door:
"Come along," she said, and they set out. No sooner were they in the street than a man, who was smoking, greeted Madame with a friendly wave of his gloved hand. She muttered between her teeth:
"Shall we never be done with them?"
The man began in a guttural voice:
"I was just going to your place, my dear, to offer you a box of Turkish cigarettes. But I see you are taking a boarding-school out for a walk--a regular boarding-school, 'pon my word! You take pupils, eh? I congratulate you. Make men of 'em, my dear, make men of 'em."
Madame Ewans frowned and replied with a curl of the lips:
"I am with my son and one of my son's friends."
The gentleman threw a careless look at one of the