I lodge close by, in a garret. The garret
is very dirty, but I hear the muisc from the Bal Tabarin across the
way. I like that--I persuade myself I am living the happy life I used
to have. When I am tossing sleepless, I hear the noise and laughter of
the crowd coming out, and blow kisses to them in the dark. You see,
although one is forgotten, one cannot forget. I pray that their
laughter will come up to me right at the end, before I die.'
"'You cannot afford to enter Tabarin's?' faltered Dupont; 'you are so
stony as that?'
"'So stony as that!' she said. 'And I repeat that to-night I want to
pass an hour in the midst of the life I loved. Monsieur, remember how
you came to make your rule! Break it for me once! Let me stay here
to-night for a bock!'
"Dupont is a restaurateur, but he is also a man. He took both her
hands, and the waiters were astonished to perceive that the
_patron_ was crying.
"'My child,' he stammered, 'you will sup here as my guest.'
"Adolphe set before her champagne that she sipped feverishly, and a
supper that she was too ill to eat. And cabs came rattling from the
Boulevard with boisterous men and women who no longer recalled her
name--and with other 'Little-Flowers-of-the-Wood,' who had sprung up
since her day.
"The woman who used to reign there sat among them looking back, until
the last jest was bandied, and the last bottle was drained. Then she
bade her host 'good-bye,' and crawled home--to the garret where she
'heard the music of the ball'; the garret where she 'prayed that the
laughter would come up to her right at the end, before she died.
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