The Grey Wig | Page 7

ecstasies
over everything, drawing each other's attention to the sky, the trees, the
water. And, indeed, of a sunshiny morning it was heartening to sit by
the pond and watch the wavering sheet of beaten gold water, reflecting
all shades of green in a restless shimmer against the shadowed grass
around. Madame Valière always had a bit of dry bread to feed the
pigeons withal--it gave a cheerful sense of superfluity, and her manner
of sprinkling the crumbs revived Madame Dépine's faded images of a
Princess scattering New Year largess.
But beneath all these pretences of content lay a hollow sense of
desolation. It was not the want of butter nor the diminished meat; it was
the total removal from life of that intangible splendour of hope
produced by the lottery ticket. Ah! every day was drawn blank now.
This gloom, this gnawing emptiness at the heart, was worse than either
had foreseen or now confessed. Malicious Fate, too, they felt, would

even crown with the grand prix the number they would have chosen.
But for the prospective draw for the Wig--which reintroduced the
aleatory--life would scarcely have been bearable.
Madame Dépine's sister-in-law's visit by the June excursion train was a
not unexpected catastrophe. It only lasted a day, but it put back the
Grey Wig by a week, for Madame Choucrou had to be fed at Duval's,
and Madame Valière magnanimously insisted on being of the party:
whether to run parallel with her friend, or to carry off the brown wig,
she alone knew. Fortunately, Madame Choucrou was both short-sighted
and colour-blind. On the other hand, she liked a petit verre with her
coffee, and both at a separate restaurant. But never had Madame
Valière appeared to Madame Dépine's eyes more like the "Princess,"
more gay and polished and debonair, than at this little round table on
the sunlit Boulevard. Little trills of laughter came from the
half-toothless gums; long gloved fingers toyed with the liqueur glass or
drew out the old-fashioned watch to see that Madame Choucrou did not
miss her train; she spent her sou royally on a hawked journal. When
they had seen Madame Choucrou off, she proposed to dock meat
entirely for a fortnight so as to regain the week. Madame Dépine
accepted in the same heroic spirit, and even suggested the elimination
of the figs: one could lunch quite well on bread and milk, now the
sunshine was here. But Madame Valière only agreed to a week's trial of
this, for she had a sweet tooth among the few in her gums.
The very next morning, as they walked in the Luxembourg Gardens,
Madame Dépine's foot kicked against something. She stooped and saw
a shining glory--a five-franc piece!
"What is it?" said Madame Valière.
"Nothing," said Madame Dépine, covering the coin with her foot. "My
bootlace." And she bent down--to pick up the coin, to fumble at her
bootlace, and to cover her furious blush. It was not that she wished to
keep the godsend to herself,--one saw on the instant that le bon Dieu
was paying for Madame Choucrou,--it was an instantaneous dread of
the "Princess's" quixotic code of honour. La Valière was capable of
flying in the face of Providence, of taking the windfall to a bureau de

police. As if the inspector wouldn't stick to it himself! A purse--yes.
But a five-franc piece, one of a flock of sheep!
The treasure-trove was added to the heap of which her stocking was
guardian, and thus honestly divided. The trouble, however, was that, as
she dared not inform the "Princess," she could not decently back out of
the meatless fortnight. Providence, as it turned out, was making them
gain a week. As to the figs, however, she confessed on the third day
that she hungered sore for them, and Madame Valière readily agreed to
make this concession to her weakness.

X
This little episode coloured for Madame Dépine the whole dreary
period that remained. Life was never again so depressingly definite;
though curiously enough the "Princess" mistook for gloom her steady
earthward glance, as they sauntered about the sweltering city. With
anxious solicitude Madame Valière would direct her attention to
sunsets, to clouds, to the rising moon; but heaven had ceased to have
attraction, except as a place from which five-francs fell, and as soon as
the "Princess's" eye was off her, her own sought the ground again. But
this imaginary need of cheering up Madame Dépine kept Madame
Valière herself from collapsing. At last, when the first red leaves began
to litter the Gardens and cover up possible coins, the francs in the
stocking approached their century.
What a happy time was that! The privations were become second
nature; the weather was still fine. The morning Gardens were a glow of
pink and