A Chair on The Boulevard by Leonard Merrick

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"Oh!" gasped the manufacturer, and hid his head under the priceless
coverlet. "Such an imputation is unpardonable," he roared, reappearing.
"I am monsieur Rigaud, of Lyons; the flat belongs to my nephew,
monsieur Tricotrin; I request you to retire!"

"Imbecile!" screamed the lady; "the flat belongs to _me_--Colette
Aubray. And your presence may ruin me--I expect a visitor on most
important business! He has not my self-control; if he finds you here he
will most certainly send you a challenge. He is the best swordsman in
Paris! I advise you to believe me, for you have just five minutes to
save your life!"

"Monsieur," wailed Léonie, "you have been deceived!" And, between her
sobs, she confessed the circumstances, which he heard with the greatest
difficulty, owing to the chattering of his teeth.

The rain was descending in cataracts when monsieur Rigaud got outside,
but though the trams and the trains had both stopped running, and cabs
were as dear as radium, his fury was so tempestuous that nothing could
deter him from reaching the poet's real abode. His attack on the front
door warned Tricotrin and Pitou what had happened, and they raised
themselves, blanched, from their pillows, to receive his curses. It was
impossible to reason with him, and he launched the most frightful
denunciation at his nephew for an hour, when the abatement of the
downpour permitted him to depart. More, at noon, who should arrive but
Leonie in tears! She had been dismissed from her employment, and came
to beg the poet to intercede for her.

"What calamities!" groaned Tricotrin. "How fruitless are man's noblest
endeavours without the favouring breeze! I shall drown myself at eight
o'clock. However, I will readily plead for you first, if your mistress
will receive me."

By the maid's advice he presented himself late in the day, and when he
had cooled his heels in the salon for some time, a lady entered, who
was of such ravishing appearance that his head swam.

"Monsieur Tricotrin?" she inquired haughtily. "I have heard your name
from your uncle, monsieur. Are you here to visit my servant?"

"Mademoiselle," he faltered, "I am here to throw myself on your mercy.
At eight o'clock I have decided to commit suicide, for I am ruined. The
only hope left me is to win your pardon before I die."

"I suppose your uncle has disowned you?" she said. "Naturally! It was a
pretty situation to put him in. How would you care to be in it
yourself?"

"Alas, mademoiselle," sighed Tricotrin, "there are situations to which
a poor poet may not aspire!"

After regarding him silently she exclaimed, "I cannot understand what a
boy with eyes like yours saw in Léonie?"

"Merely good nature and a means to an end, believe me! If you would
ease my last moments, reinstate her in your service. Do not let me
drown with the knowledge that another is suffering for my fault!
Mademoiselle, I entreat you--take her back!"

"And why should I ease your last moments?" she demurred.

"Because I have no right to ask it; because I have no defence for my
sin towards you; because you would be justified in trampling on me--and
to pardon would be sublime!"

"You are very eloquent for my maid," returned the lady.

He shook his head. "Ah, no--I fear I am pleading for myself. For, if
you reinstate the girl, it will prove that you forgive the man--and I
want your forgiveness so much!" He fell at her feet.

"Does your engagement for eight o'clock press, monsieur?" murmured the
lady, smiling. "If you could dine here again to-night, I might relent
by degrees."

"And she is adorable!" he told Pitou. "I passed the most delicious
evening of my life!" "It is fortunate," observed Pitou, "for that, and
your uncle's undying enmity, are all you have obtained by your
imposture. Remember that the evening cost two thousand francs a year!"

"Ah, misanthrope," cried Tricotrin radiantly, "there must be a crumpled
roseleaf in every Eden!"

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?"

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