The Grey Wig | Page 4

air of foreign exploration, passed behind the door through whose keyhole she had so often peered. Ah! no wonder she had detected nothing abnormal. The room was a facsimile of her own--the same bed with the same quilt over it and the same crucifix above it, the same little table with the same books of devotion, the same washstand with the same tiny jug and basin, the same rusted, fireless grate. The wardrobe, like her own, was merely a pair of moth-eaten tartan curtains, concealing both pegs and garments from her curiosity. The only sense of difference came subtly from the folding windows, below whose railed balcony showed another view of the quarter, with steam-trams--diminished to toy trains--puffing past to the suburbs. But as Madame D��pine's eyes roved from these to the mantel-piece, she caught sight of an oval miniature of an elegant young woman, who was jewelled in many places, and corresponded exactly with her idea of a Princess!
To disguise her access of respect, she said abruptly, "It must be very noisy here from the steam-trams."
"It is what I love, the bustle of life," replied Madame Vali��re, simply.
"Ah!" said Madame D��pine, impressed beyond masking-point, "I suppose when one has had the habit of Courts--"
Madame Vali��re shuddered unexpectedly. "Let us not speak of it. Take a fig."
But Madame D��pine persisted--though she took the fig. "Ah! those were brave days when we had still an Emperor and an Empress to drive to the Bois with their equipages and outriders. Ah, how pretty it was!"
"But the President has also"--a fit of coughing interrupted Madame Vali��re--"has also outriders."
"But he is so bourgeois--a mere man of the people," said Madame D��pine.
"They are the most decent sort of folk. But do you not feel cold? I will light a fire." She bent towards the wood-box.
"No, no; do not trouble. I shall be going in a moment. I have a large fire blazing in my room."
"Then suppose we go and sit there," said poor Madame Vali��re.
Poor Madame D��pine was seized with a cough, more protracted than any of which she had complained.
"Provided it has not gone out in my absence," she stammered at last. "I will go first and see if it is in good trim."
"No, no; it is not worth the trouble of moving." And Madame Vali��re drew her street-cloak closer round her slim form. "But I have lived so long in Russia, I forget people call this cold."
"Ah! the Princess travelled far?" said Madame D��pine, eagerly.
"Too far," replied Madame Vali��re, with a flash of Gallic wit. "But who has told you of the Princess?"
"Madame la Propri��taire, naturally."
"She talks too much--she and her wig!"
"If only she didn't imagine herself a powdered marquise in it! To see her standing before the mirror in the salon!"
"The beautiful spectacle!" assented Madame Vali��re.
"Ah! but I don't forget--if she does--that her mother wheeled a fruit-barrow through the streets of Tonnerre!"
"Ah! yes, I knew you were from Tonnerre--dear Tonnerre!"
"How did you know?"
"Naturally, Madame la Propri��taire."
"The old gossip!" cried Madame D��pine--"though not so old as she feigns. But did she tell you of her mother, too, and the fruit-barrow?"
"I knew her mother--une brave femme."
"I do not say not," said Madame D��pine, a whit disconcerted. "Nevertheless, when one's mother is a merchant of the four seasons--"
"Provided she sold fruit as good as this! Take another fig, I beg of you."
"Thank you. These are indeed excellent," said Madame D��pine. "She owed all her good fortune to a coup in the lottery."
"Ah! the lottery!" Madame Vali��re sighed. Before the eyes of both rose the vision of a lucky number and a grey wig.

VI
The acquaintanceship ripened. It was not only their common grievances against fate and Madame la Propri��taire: they were linked by the sheer physical fact that each was the only person to whom the other could talk without the morbid consciousness of an eye scrutinising the unseemly brown wig. It became quite natural, therefore, for Madame D��pine to stroll into her "Princess's" room, and they soon slid into dividing the cost of the fire. That was more than an economy, for neither could afford a fire alone. It was an easy transition to the discovery that coffee could be made more cheaply for two, and that the same candle would light two persons, provided they sat in the same room. And if they did not fall out of the habit of companionship even at the cr��merie, though "two portions for one" were not served, their union at least kept the sexagenarians in countenance. Two brown wigs give each other a moral support, are on the way to a fashion.
But there was more than wigs and cheese-parings in their camaraderie. Madame D��pine found a fathomless mine of edification in Madame Vali��re's reminiscences, which she skilfully extracted from her, finding the average ore rich with noble