THE FATAL FLOROZONDE

Before Pitou, the composer, left for the Hague, he called on Théophile de Fronsac, the poet. La Voix Parisienne had lately appointed de Fronsac to its staff, on condition that he contributed no poetry.

"Good-evening," said de Fronsac. "Mon Dieu! what shall I write about?"

"Write about my music," said Pitou, whose compositions had been rejected in every arrondissement of Paris.

"Let us talk sanely," demurred de Fronsac. "My causerie is half a column short. Tell me something interesting."

"Woman!" replied Pitou.

De Fronsac flicked his cigarette ash. "You remind me," he said, "how much I need a love affair; my sensibilities should be stimulated. To continue to write with fervour I require to adore again."

"It is very easy to adore," observed Pitou.

"Not at forty," lamented the other; "especially to a man in Class A. Don't forget, my young friend, that I have loved and been loved persistently for twenty-three years. I cannot adore a repetition, and it is impossible for me to discover a new type."

"All of which I understand," said Pitou, "excepting 'Class A.'"

"There are three kinds of men," explained the poet. "Class A are the men to whom women inevitably surrender. Class B consists of those whom they trust by instinct and confide in on the second day; these men acquire an extensive knowledge of the sex—but they always fall short of winning the women for themselves. Class C women think of merely as 'the others'—they do not count; eventually they marry, and try to persuade their wives that they were devils of fellows when they were young. However, such reflections will not assist me to finish my causerie, for I wrote them all last week."

"Talking of women," remarked Pitou, "a little blonde has come to live opposite our lodging. So far we have only bowed from our windows, but I have christened her 'Lynette,' and Tricotrin has made a poem about her. It is pathetic. The last verse—the others are not written yet—goes:

"'O window I watched in the days that are dead,
Are you watched by a lover to-day?
Are glimpses caught now of another blonde head
By a youth who lives over the way?
Does she repeat words that Lynette's lips have said—
And does he say what I used to say?'"

"What is the answer?" asked de Fronsac. "Is it a conundrum? In any case it is a poor substitute for a half a column of prose in La Voix . How on earth am I to arrive at the bottom of the page? If I am short in my copy, I shall be short in my rent; if I am short in my rent, I shall be put out of doors; if I am put out of doors, I shall die of exposure. And much good it will do me that they erect a statue to me in the next generation! Upon my word, I would stand a dinner—at the two-franc place where you may eat all you can hold—if you could give me a subject."

"It happens," said Pitou, "that I can give you a very strange one. As I am going to a foreign land, I have been to the country to bid farewell to my parents; I came across an extraordinary girl."

"One who disliked presents?" inquired de Fronsac.

"I am not jesting. She is a dancer in a travelling circus. The flare and the drum wooed me one night, and I went in. As a circus, well, you may imagine—a tent in a fair. My fauteuil was a plank, and the orchestra surpassed the worst tortures of the Inquisition. And then, after the decrepit horses, and a mangy lion, a girl came into the ring, with the most marvellous eyes I have ever seen in a human face. They are green eyes, with golden lights in them."

"Really?" murmured the poet. "I have never been loved by a girl who had green eyes with golden lights in them."

"I am glad you have never been loved by this one," returned the composer gravely; "she has a curious history. All her lovers, without exception, have committed suicide."

"What?" said de Fronsac, staring.

"It is very queer. One of them had just inherited a hundred thousand francs—he hanged himself. Another, an author from Italy, took poison, while all Rome was reading his novel. To be infatuated by her is harmless enough, but to win her is invariably fatal within a few weeks. Some time ago she attached herself to one of the troupe, and soon afterwards he discovered she was deceiving him. He resolved to shoot her. He pointed a pistol at her breast. She simply laughed—and looked at him . He turned the pistol on himself, and blew his brains out!"

De Fronsac had already written: "Here is the extraordinary history of a girl whom I discovered in a fair." The next moment:

"But you repeat a rumour," he objected. " La Voix Parisienne has a reputation; odd as the fact may appear to you, people read it. If this is published in La Voix it will attract attention. Soon she will be promoted from a tent in a fair to a stage in Paris. Well, what happens? You tell me she is beautiful, so she will have hundreds of admirers. Among the hundreds there will be one she favours. And then? Unless he committed suicide in a few weeks, the paper would be proved a liar. I should not be able to sleep of nights for fear he would not kill himself."

"My dear," exclaimed Pitou with emotion, "would I add to your anxieties? Rather than you should be disturbed by anybody's living, let us dismiss the subject, and the dinner, and talk of my new Symphony. On the other hand, I fail to see that the paper's reputation is your affair—it is not your wife; and I am more than usually empty to-day."

"Your argument is sound," said de Fronsac. "Besides, the Editor refuses my poetry." And he wrote without cessation for ten minutes.

The two-franc table-d'hôte excelled itself that evening, and Pitou did ample justice to the menu.

Behold how capricious is the jade, Fame! The poet whose verses had left him obscure, accomplished in ten minutes a paragraph that fascinated all Paris. On the morrow people pointed it out to one another; the morning after, other journals referred to it; in the afternoon the Editor of La Voix Parisienne was importuned with questions. No one believed the story to be true, but not a soul could help wondering if it might be so.

When a day or two had passed, Pitou received from de Fronsac a note which ran:

"Send to me at once, I entreat thee, the name of that girl, and say where she can be found. The managers of three variety theatres of the first class have sought me out and are eager to engage her."

"Decidedly," said Pitou, "I have mistaken my vocation—I ought to have been a novelist!" And he replied:

"The girl whose eyes suggested the story to me is called on the programmes 'Florozonde.' For the rest, I know nothing, except that thou didst offer a dinner and I was hungry."

However, when he had written this, he destroyed it.

"Though I am unappreciated myself, and shall probably conclude in the Morgue," he mused, "that is no excuse for my withholding prosperity from others. Doubtless the poor girl would rejoice to appear at three variety theatres of the first class, or even at one of them." He answered simply:

"Her name is 'Florozonde'; she will be found in a circus at Chartres"— and nearly suffocated with laughter.

Then a little later the papers announced that Mlle. Florozonde—whose love by a strange series of coincidences had always proved fatal—would be seen at La Coupole. Posters bearing the name of "Florozonde"—yellow on black—invaded the boulevards. Her portrait caused crowds to assemble, and "That girl who, they say, deals death, that Florozonde!" was to be heard as constantly as ragtime.

By now Pitou was at the Hague, his necessities having driven him into the employment of a Parisian who had opened a shop there for the sale of music and French pianos. When he read the Paris papers, Pitou trembled so violently that the onlookers thought he must have ague. Hilarity struggled with envy in his breast. "Ma foi!" he would say to himself, "it seems that my destiny is to create successes for others. Here am I, exiled, and condemned to play cadenzas all day in a piano warehouse, while she whom I invented, dances jubilant in Paris. I do not doubt that she breakfasts at Armenonville, and dines at Paillard's."

And it was a fact that Florozonde was the fashion. As regards her eyes, at any rate, the young man had not exaggerated more than was to be forgiven in an artist; her eyes were superb, supernatural; and now that the spangled finery of a fair was replaced by the most triumphant of audacities—now that a circus band had been exchanged for the orchestra of La Coupole—she danced as she had not danced before. You say that a gorgeous costume cannot improve a woman's dancing? Let a woman realise that you improve her appearance, and you improve everything that she can do!

Nevertheless one does not pretend that it was owing to her talent, or her costume, or the weird melody proposed by the chef d'orchestre, that she became the rage. Not at all. That was due to her reputation. Sceptics might smile and murmur the French for "Rats!" but, again, nobody could say positively that the tragedies had not occurred. And above all, there were the eyes—it was conceded that a woman with eyes like that ought to be abnormal. La Coupole was thronged every night, and the stage doorkeeper grew rich, so numerous were the daring spirits, coquetting with death, who tendered notes inviting the Fatal One to supper.

Somehow the suppers were rather dreary. The cause may have been that the guest was handicapped by circumstances—to be good company without discarding the fatal air was extremely difficult; also the cause may have been that the daring spirits felt their courage forsake them in a tête-à-tête; but it is certain that once when Florozonde drove home in the small hours to the tattered aunt who lived on her, she exclaimed violently that, "All this silly fake was giving her the hump, and that she wished she were 'on the road' again, with a jolly good fellow who was not afraid of her!"

Then the tattered aunt cooed to her, reminding her that little ducklings had run to her already roasted, and adding that she (the tattered aunt) had never heard of equal luck in all the years she had been in the show business.

"Ah, zut!" cried Florozonde. "It does not please me to be treated as if
I had scarlet fever. If I lean towards a man, he turns pale."

"Life is good," said her aunt philosophically, "and men have no wish to die for the sake of an embrace—remember your reputation! II faut souffrir pour être fatale. Look at your salary, sweetie—and you have had nothing to do but hold your tongue! Ah, was anything ever heard like it? A miracle of le bon Dieu!"

"It was monsieur de Fronsac, the journalist, who started it," said Florozonde. "I supposed he had made it up, to give me a lift; but, ma foi, I think he half believes it, too! What can have put it in his head? I have a mind to ask him the next time he comes behind."

"What a madness!" exclaimed the old woman; "you might queer your pitch! Never, never perform a trick with a confederate when you can work alone; that is one of the first rules of life. If he thinks it is true, so much the better. Now get to bed, lovey, and think of pleasant things—what did you have for supper?"

Florozonde was correct in her surmise—de Fronsac did half believe it, and de Fronsac was accordingly much perturbed. Consider his dilemma! The nature of his pursuits had demanded a love affair, and he had endeavoured conscientiously to comply, for the man was nothing if not an artist. But, as he had said to Pitou, he had loved so much, and so many, that the thing was practically impossible for him, He was like the pastrycook's boy who is habituated and bilious. Then suddenly a new type, which he had despaired of finding, was displayed. His curiosity awoke; and, fascinated in the first instance by her ghastly reputation, he was fascinated gradually by her physical charms. Again he found himself enslaved by a woman—and the woman, who owed her fame to his services, was clearly appreciative. But he had a strong objection to committing suicide.

His eagerness for her love was only equalled by his dread of what might happen if she gave it to him. Alternately he yearned, and shuddered, On Monday he cried, "Idiot, to be frightened by such blague!" and on Tuesday he told himself, "All the same, there may be something in it!" It was thus tortured that he paid his respects to Florozonde at the theatre on the evening after she complained to her aunt. She was in her dressing-room, making ready to go.

"You have danced divinely," he said to her. "There is no longer a programme at La Coupole—there is only 'Florozonde.'"

She smiled the mysterious smile that she was cultivating. "What have you been doing with yourself, monsieur? I have not seen you all the week."

De Fronsac sighed expressively. "At my age one has the wisdom to avoid temptation."

"May it not be rather unkind to temptation?" she suggested, raising her marvellous eyes.

De Fronsac drew a step back. "Also I have had a great deal to do," he added formally; "I am a busy man. For example, much as I should like to converse with you now.—" But his resolution forsook him and he was unable to say that he had looked in only for a minute.

"Much as you would like to converse with me—?" questioned Florozonde.

"I ought, by rights, to be seated at my desk," he concluded lamely.

"I am pleased that you are not seated at your desk," she said.

"Because?" murmured de Fronsac, with unspeakable emotions.

"Because I have never thanked you enough for your interest in me, and I want to tell you that I remember." She gave him her hand. He held it, battling with terror.

"Mademoiselle," he returned tremulously, "when I wrote the causerie you refer to, my interest in you was purely the interest of a journalist, so for that I do not deserve your thanks. But since I have had the honour to meet you I have experienced an interest altogether different; the interest of a man, of a—a—" Here his teeth chattered, and he paused.

"Of a what?" she asked softly, with a dreamy air.

"Of a friend," he muttered. A gust of fear had made the "friend" an iceberg. But her clasp tightened.

"I am glad," she said. "Ah, you have been good to me, monsieur! And if, in spite of everything, I am sometimes sad, I am, at least, never ungrateful."

"You are sad?" faltered the vacillating victim. "Why?"

Her bosom rose. "Is success all a woman wants?"

"Ah!" exclaimed de Fronsac, in an impassioned quaver, "is that not life? To all of us there is the unattainable—to you, to me!"

"To you?" she murmured. Her eyes were transcendental. Admiration and alarm tore him in halves.

"In truth," he gasped, "I am the most miserable of men! What is genius, what is fame, when one is lonely and unloved?"

She moved impetuously closer—so close that the perfume of her hair intoxicated him. His heart seemed to knock against his ribs, and he felt the perspiration burst out on his brow. For an instant he hesitated—on the edge of his grave, he thought. Then he dropped her hand, and backed from her. "But why should I bore you with my griefs?" he stammered. "Au revoir, mademoiselle!"

Outside the stage door he gave thanks for his self-control. Also, pale with the crisis, he registered an oath not to approach her again.

Meanwhile the expatriated Pitou had remained disconsolate. Though the people at the Hague spoke French, they said foreign things to him in it. He missed Montmartre—the interests of home. While he waxed eloquent to customers on the tone of pianos, or the excellence of rival composers' melodies, he was envying Florozonde in Paris. Florozonde, whom he had created, obsessed the young man. In the evening he read about her at Van der Pyl's; on Sundays, when the train carried him to drink beer at Scheveningen, he read about her in the Kurhaus. And then the unexpected happened. In this way:

Pitou was discharged.

Few things could have surprised him more, and, to tell the truth, few things could have troubled him less. "It is better to starve in Paris than grow fat in Holland," he observed. He jingled his capital in his trouser-pocket, in fancy savoured his dinner cooking at the Café du Bel Avenir, and sped from the piano shop as if it had been on fire.

The clock pointed to a quarter to six as Nicolas Pitou, composer, emerged from the gare du Nord, and lightly swinging the valise that contained his wardrobe, proceeded to the rue des Trois Frères. Never had it looked dirtier, or sweeter. He threw himself on Tricotrin's neck; embraced the concierge—which took her breath away, since she was ill-favoured and most disagreeable; fared sumptuously for one franc fifty at the Café du Bel Avenir—where he narrated adventures abroad that surpassed de Rougemont's; and went to La Coupole.

And there, jostled by the crowd, the poor fellow looked across the theatre at the triumphant woman he had invented—and fell in love with her.

One would have said there was more than the width of a theatre between them—one would have said the distance was interminable. Who in the audience could suspect that Florozonde would have been unknown but for a boy in the Promenoir?

Yes, he fell in love—with her beauty, her grace—perhaps also with the circumstances. The theatre rang with plaudits; the curtain hid her; and he went out, dizzy with romance. He could not hope to speak to her to-night, but he was curious to see her when she left. He decided that on the morrow he would call upon de Fronsac, whom she doubtless knew now, and ask him for an introduction. Promising himself this, he reached the stage door—where de Fronsac, with trembling limbs, stood giving thanks for his self-control.

"My friend!" cried Pitou enthusiastically, "how rejoiced I am to meet you!" and nearly wrung his hand off.

"Aïe! Gently!" expostulated de Fronsac, writhing. "Aïe, aïe! I did not know you loved me so much. So you are back from Sweden, hein?"

"Yes. I have not been there, but why should we argue about geography? What were you doing as I came up—reciting your poems? By the way, I have a favour to ask; I want you to introduce me to Florozonde."

"Never!" answered the poet firmly; "I have too much affection for you— I have just resolved not to see her again myself. Besides, I thought you knew her in the circus?"

"I never spoke to her there—I simply admired her from the plank. Come, take me inside, and present me!"

"It is impossible," persisted de Fronsac; "I tell you I will not venture near her any more. Also, she is coming out—that is her coupé that you see waiting."

She came out as he spoke, and, affecting not to recognise him, moved rapidly towards the carriage. But this would not do for Pitou at all. "Mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, sweeping his hat nearly to the pavement.

"Yes, well?" she said sharply, turning.

"I have just begged my friend de Fronsac to present me to you, and he feared you might not pardon his presumption. May I implore you to pardon mine?"

She smiled. There was the instant in which neither the man nor the woman knows who will speak next, nor what is to be said—the instant on which destinies hang. Pitou seized it.

"Mademoiselle, I returned to France only this evening. All the journey my thought was—to see you as soon as I arrived!"

"Your friend," she said, with a scornful glance towards de Fronsac, who sauntered gracefully away, "would warn you that you are rash."

"I am not afraid of his warning."

"Are you not afraid of me ?"

"Afraid only that you will banish me too soon."

"Mon Dieu! then you must be the bravest man in Paris," she said.

"At any rate I am the luckiest for the moment."

It was a delightful change to Florozonde to meet a man who was not alarmed by her; and it pleased her to show de Fronsac that his cowardice had not left her inconsolable. She laughed loud enough for him to hear.

"I ought not to be affording you the luck," she answered. "I have friends waiting for me at the Café de Paris." "I expected some such blow," said Pitou. "And how can I suppose you will disappoint your friends in order to sup with me at the Café du Bel Avenir instead?"

"The Café du—?" She was puzzled.

"Bel Avenir."

"I do not know it."

"Nor would your coachman. We should walk there—and our supper would cost three francs, wine included."

"Is it an invitation?"

"It is a prayer."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Nicolas Pitou,"

"Of Paris?"

"Of bohemia."

"What do you do in it?"

"Hunger, and make music."

"Unsuccessful?"

"Not to-night!"

"Take me to the Bel Avenir," she said, and sent the carriage away.

De Fronsac, looking back as they departed, was distressed to see the young man risking his life.

At the Bel Avenir their entrance made a sensation. She removed her cloak, and Pitou arranged it over two chairs. Then she threw her gloves out of the way, in the bread-basket; and the waiter and the proprietress, and all the family, did homage to her toilette.

"Who would have supposed?" she smiled, and her smile forgot to be mysterious.

"That the restaurant would be so proud?"

"That I should be supping with you in it! Tell me, you had no hope of this on your journey? It was true about your journey, hein?"

"Ah, really! No, how could I hope? I went round after your dance simply to see you closer; and then I met de Fronsac, and then—"

"And then you were very cheeky. Answer! Why do I interest you? Because of what they say of me?"

"Not altogether."

"What else?"

"Because you are so beautiful. Answer! Why did you come to supper with me? To annoy some other fellow?"

"Not altogether."

"What else?"

"Because you were not frightened of me. Are you sure you are not frightened? Oh, remember, remember your horrible fate if I should like you too much!"

"It would be a thumping advertisement for you," said Pitou. "Let me urge you to try to secure it."

"Reckless boy!" she laughed, "Pour out some more wine. Ah, it is good, this! it is like old times. The strings of onions on the dear, dirty walls, and the serviettes that are so nice and damp! It was in restaurants like this, if my salary was paid, I used to sup on fête days."

"And if it was not paid?"

"I supped in imagination. My dear, I have had a cigarette for a supper, and the grass for a bed. I have tramped by the caravan while the stars faded, and breakfasted on the drum in the tent. And you—on a bench in the Champs Elysées, hein?"

"It has occurred."

"And you watched the sun rise, and made music, and wished you could rise, too? I must hear your music some day. You shall write me a dance. Is it agreed?"

"The contract is already stamped," said Pitou.

"I am glad I met you—it is the best supper I have had in Paris. Why are you calculating the expenses on the back of the bill of fare?"

"I am not. I am composing your dance," said Pitou. "Don't speak for a minute, it will be sublime! Also it will be a souvenir when you have gone."

But she did not go for a long while. It was late when they left the Café du Bel Avenir, still talking—and there was always more to say. By this time Pitou did not merely love her beauty—he adored the woman. As for Florozonde, she no longer merely loved his courage—she approved the man.

Listen: he was young, fervid, and an artist; his proposal was made before they reached her doorstep, and she consented!

Their attachment was the talk of the town, and everybody waited to hear that Pitou had killed himself. His name was widely known at last. But weeks and months went by; Florozonde's protracted season came to an end; and still he looked radiantly well. Pitou was the most unpopular man in Paris.

In the rue Dauphine, one day, he met de Fronsac.

"So you are still alive!" snarled the poet.

"Never better," declared Pitou. "It turns out," he added confidentially, "there was nothing in that story—it was all fudge."

"Evidently! I must congratulate you," said de Fronsac, looking bomb-shells.