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'hote excelled itself that evening, and Pitou did
ample justice to the menu.
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