BOOK SEVENTH CHAPTER I.THE DANGER OF CONFIDING ONE'S SECRET

Fleur-de-Lys replied to the captain with a bland affectation of disdain;--"Not bad."

The others whispered.

At length, Madame Aloise, who was not the less jealous because she was so for her daughter, addressed the dancer,--"Approach, little one."

"Approach, little one!" repeated, with comical dignity, little Bérangère, who would have reached about as high as her hips.

The gypsy advanced towards the noble dame.

"Fair child," said phoebus, with emphasis, taking several steps towards her, "I do not know whether I have the supreme honor of being recognized by you."

She interrupted him, with a smile and a look full of infinite sweetness,--

"Oh! yes," said she.

"She has a good memory," remarked Fleur-de-Lys.

"Come, now," resumed phoebus, "you escaped nimbly the other evening.Did I frighten you!"

"Oh! no," said the gypsy.

There was in the intonation of that "Oh! no," uttered after that "Oh! yes," an ineffable something which wounded Fleur-de-Lys.

"You left me in your stead, my beauty," pursued the captain, whose tongue was unloosed when speaking to a girl out of the street, "a crabbed knave, one-eyed and hunchbacked, the bishop's bellringer, I believe.I have been told that by birth he is the bastard of an archdeacon and a devil. He has a pleasant name: he is called ~Quatre-Temps~ (Ember Days), ~paques-Fleuries~ (palm Sunday), Mardi-Gras (Shrove Tuesday), I know not what!The name of some festival when the bells are pealed!So he took the liberty of carrying you off, as though you were made for beadles!'Tis too much. What the devil did that screech-owl want with you? Hey, tell me!"

"I do not know," she replied.

"The inconceivable impudence!A bellringer carrying off a wench, like a vicomte! a lout poaching on the game of gentlemen! that is a rare piece of assurance.However, he paid dearly for it.Master pierrat Torterue is the harshest groom that ever curried a knave; and I can tell you, if it will be agreeable to you, that your bellringer's hide got a thorough dressing at his hands."

"poor man!" said the gypsy, in whom these words revived the memory of the pillory.

The captain burst out laughing.

"Corne-de-boeuf! here's pity as well placed as a feather in a pig's tail!May I have as big a belly as a pope, if--"

He stopped short."pardon me, ladies; I believe that I was on the point of saying something foolish."

"Fie, sir" said la Gaillefontaine.

"He talks to that creature in her own tongue!" added Fleur-de-Lys, in a low tone, her irritation increasing every moment.This irritation was not diminished when she beheld the captain, enchanted with the gypsy, and, most of all, with himself, execute a pirouette on his heel, repeating with coarse, na?ve, and soldierly gallantry,--

"A handsome wench, upon my soul!"

"Rather savagely dressed," said Diane de Christeuil, laughing to show her fine teeth.

This remark was a flash of light to the others.Not being able to impugn her beauty, they attacked her costume.

"That is true," said la Montmichel; "what makes you run about the streets thus, without guimpe or ruff?"

"That petticoat is so short that it makes one tremble," added la Gaillefontaine.

"My dear," continued Fleur-de-Lys, with decided sharpness, "You will get yourself taken up by the sumptuary police for your gilded girdle."

"Little one, little one;" resumed la Christeuil, with an implacable smile, "if you were to put respectable sleeves upon your arms they would get less sunburned."

It was, in truth, a spectacle worthy of a more intelligent spectator than phoebus, to see how these beautiful maidens, with their envenomed and angry tongues, wound, serpent-like, and glided and writhed around the street dancer.They were cruel and graceful; they searched and rummaged maliciously in her poor and silly toilet of spangles and tinsel.There was no end to their laughter, irony, and humiliation.Sarcasms rained down upon the gypsy, and haughty condescension and malevolent looks.One would have thought they were young Roman dames thrusting golden pins into the breast of a beautiful slave.One would have pronounced them elegant grayhounds, circling, with inflated nostrils, round a poor woodland fawn, whom the glance of their master forbade them to devour.

After all, what was a miserable dancer on the public squares in the presence of these high-born maidens?They seemed to take no heed of her presence, and talked of her aloud, to her face, as of something unclean, abject, and yet, at the same time, passably pretty.

The gypsy was not insensible to these pin-pricks.From time to time a flush of shame, a flash of anger inflamed her eyes or her cheeks; with disdain she made that little grimace with which the reader is already familiar, but she remained motionless; she fixed on phoebus a sad, sweet, resigned look. There was also happiness and tenderness in that gaze.One would have said that she endured for fear of being expelled.

phoebus laughed, and took the gypsy's part with a mixture of impertinence and pity.

"Let them talk, little one!" he repeated, jingling his golden spurs."No doubt your toilet is a little extravagant and wild, but what difference does that make with such a charming damsel as yourself?"

"Good gracious!" exclaimed the blonde Gaillefontaine, drawing up her swan-like throat, with a bitter smile."I see that messieurs the archers of the king's police easily take fire at the handsome eyes of gypsies!"

"Why not?" said phoebus.

At this reply uttered carelessly by the captain, like a stray stone, whose fall one does not even watch, Colombe began to laugh, as well as Diane, Amelotte, and Fleur-de-Lys, into whose eyes at the same time a tear started.

The gypsy, who had dropped her eyes on the floor at the words of Colombe de Gaillefontaine, raised them beaming with joy and pride and fixed them once more on phoebus.She was very beautiful at that moment.

The old dame, who was watching this scene, felt offended, without understanding why.

"Holy Virgin!" she suddenly exclaimed, "what is it moving about my legs?Ah! the villanous beast!"

It was the goat, who had just arrived, in search of his mistress, and who, in dashing towards the latter, had begun by entangling his horns in the pile of stuffs which the noble dame's garments heaped up on her feet when she was seated.

This created a diversion.The gypsy disentangled his horns without uttering a word.

"Oh! here's the little goat with golden hoofs!" exclaimed Bérangère, dancing with joy.

The gypsy crouched down on her knees and leaned her cheek against the fondling head of the goat.One would have said that she was asking pardon for having quitted it thus.

Meanwhile, Diane had bent down to Colombe's ear.

"Ah! good heavens! why did not I think of that sooner? 'Tis the gypsy with the goat.They say she is a sorceress, and that her goat executes very miraculous tricks."

"Well!" said Colombe, "the goat must now amuse us in its turn, and perform a miracle for us."

Diane and Colombe eagerly addressed the gypsy.

"Little one, make your goat perform a miracle."

"I do not know what you mean," replied the dancer.

"A miracle, a piece of magic, a bit of sorcery, in short."

"I do not understand."And she fell to caressing the pretty animal, repeating, "Djali!Djali!"

At that moment Fleur-de-Lys noticed a little bag of embroidered leather suspended from the neck of the goat,-- "What is that?" she asked of the gypsy.

The gypsy raised her large eyes upon her and replied gravely,-- "That is my secret."

"I should really like to know what your secret is," thought Fleur-de-Lys.

Meanwhile, the good dame had risen angrily,--" Come now, gypsy, if neither you nor your goat can dance for us, what are you doing here?"

The gypsy walked slowly towards the door, without making any reply.But the nearer she approached it, the more her pace slackened.An irresistible magnet seemed to hold her.Suddenly she turned her eyes, wet with tears, towards phoebus, and halted.

"True God!" exclaimed the captain, "that's not the way to depart.Come back and dance something for us.By the way, my sweet love, what is your name?"

"La Esmeralda," said the dancer, never taking her eyes from him.

At this strange name, a burst of wild laughter broke from the young girls.

"Here's a terrible name for a young lady," said Diane.

"You see well enough," retorted Amelotte, "that she is an enchantress."

"My dear," exclaimed Dame Aloise solemnly, "your parents did not commit the sin of giving you that name at the baptismal font."

In the meantime, several minutes previously, Bérangère had coaxed the goat into a corner of the room with a marchpane cake, without any one having noticed her.In an instant they had become good friends.The curious child had detached the bag from the goat's neck, had opened it, and had emptied out its contents on the rush matting; it was an alphabet, each letter of which was separately inscribed on a tiny block of boxwood.Hardly had these playthings been spread out on the matting, when the child, with surprise, beheld the goat (one of whose "miracles" this was no doubt), draw out certain letters with its golden hoof, and arrange them, with gentle pushes, in a certain order.In a moment they constituted a word, which the goat seemed to have been trained to write, so little hesitation did it show in forming it, and Bérangère suddenly exclaimed, clasping her hands in admiration,--

"Godmother Fleur-de-Lys, see what the goat has just done!"

Fleur-de-Lys ran up and trembled.The letters arranged upon the floor formed this word,--

pHOEBUS.

"Was it the goat who wrote that?" she inquired in a changed voice.

"Yes, godmother," replied Bérangêre.

It was impossible to doubt it; the child did not know how to write.

"This is the secret!" thought Fleur-de-Lys.

Meanwhile, at the child's exclamation, all had hastened up, the mother, the young girls, the gypsy, and the officer.

The gypsy beheld the piece of folly which the goat had committed.She turned red, then pale, and began to tremble like a culprit before the captain, who gazed at her with a smile of satisfaction and amazement.

"phoebus!" whispered the young girls, stupefied: "'tis the captain's name!"

"You have a marvellous memory!" said Fleur-de-Lys, to the petrified gypsy.Then, bursting into sobs: "Oh!" she stammered mournfully, hiding her face in both her beautiful hands, "she is a magician!"And she heard another and a still more bitter voice at the bottom of her heart, saying,-- "She is a rival!"

She fell fainting.

"My daughter! my daughter!" cried the terrified mother. "Begone, you gypsy of hell!"

In a twinkling, La Esmeralda gathered up the unlucky letters, made a sign to Djali, and went out through one door, while Fleur-de-Lys was being carried out through the other.

Captain phoebus, on being left alone, hesitated for a moment between the two doors, then he followed the gypsy.