The Grey Wig | Page 7

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 D��pine'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 Vali��re 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 Vali��re appeared to Madame D��pine'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 D��pine 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 Vali��re 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 D��pine's foot kicked against something. She stooped and saw a shining glory--a five-franc piece!
"What is it?" said Madame Vali��re.
"Nothing," said Madame D��pine, 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 Vali��re 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 Vali��re readily agreed to make this concession to her weakness.

X
This little episode coloured for Madame D��pine 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 Vali��re 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 D��pine kept Madame Vali��re 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 purple and dripping diamonds, and on some of the trees was the delicate green of a second blossoming, like hope in the heart of age. They could scarcely refrain from betraying their exultation to the H?tel des Tourterelles, from which they had concealed their sufferings. But the polyglot population seething round its malodorous stairs and tortuous corridors remained ignorant that anything was passing in the life of these faded old creatures, and even on the day of drawing lots for the Wig the exuberant hotel retained its imperturbable activity.
Not that they really drew lots. That was a figure of speech, difficult to translate into facts. They preferred to spin a coin. Madame D��pine was to toss, the "Princess" to cry pile ou face. From the stocking Madame D��pine drew, naturally enough, the solitary five-franc piece. It whirled in the air; the "Princess" cried face. The puff-puff of the steam-tram sounded like the panting of anxious Fate. The great coin fell, rolled, balanced