For a moment or two the glamour of the Parisian meal faded away. He beheld himself—as he had wofully done in intervals between the raptures of the past few days—an anxious and despairing young man: terribly anxious to obtain another abhorred teachership, yet desperate at the prospect of lifelong, ineffectual drudgery. Corinna, her elbows on the table, poising in her hand a teaspoonful of tepid strawberry ice, regarded him earnestly.
“I wish I were a man,” she declared.
“What would you do?”
She swallowed the morsel of ice and dropped her spoon with a clatter.
“I would take life by the throat and choke something big out of it,” she cried dramatically.
“Probably an ocean of tears or a Sahara of despair,” said a voice from the door.
Both turned sharply. The speaker was a middle-aged man of a presence at once commanding and subservient. He had a shock of greyish hair brushed back from the forehead and terminating above the collar in a fashion suggestive of the late Abbé Liszt. His clean-shaven face was broad and massive; the features large: eyes grey and prominent; the mouth loose and fleshy. Many lines marked it, most noticeable of all a deep, vertical furrow between the brows. He was dressed, somewhat shabbily, in a black frock coat suit and wore the white tie of the French attorney. His voice was curiously musical.
“Good Lord, Fortinbras, how you startled me!” exclaimed Corinna.
“I couldn’t help it,” said he, coming forward. “When you turn the Petit Cornichon into the stage of the Odéon, what can I do but give you the reply? I came here to find our good friend Widdrington.”
“Widdrington went back to England this morning,” she announced.
“That’s a pity. I had good news for him. I have arranged his little affair. He should be here to profit by it. I love impulsiveness in youth,” he said addressing himself to Martin, “when it proceeds from noble ardour; but when it marks the feather-headed irresponsibility of the idiot, I cannot deprecate it too strongly.”
Challenged, as it were, for a response, “I cordially agree with you, sir,” said Martin.
“You two ought to know one another,” said Corinna. “This is my friend, Mr. Overshaw—Martin, let me introduce you to Mr. Daniel Fortinbras, Marchand de Bonheur.”
Fortinbras extended a soft white hand and holding Martin’s benevolently:
“Which being translated into our rougher speech,” said he, “means Dealer in Happiness.”
“I wish you would provide me with some,” said Martin, laughingly.
“And so do I,” said Corinna.
Fortinbras drew a chair to the table and sat down.
“My fee,” said he, “is five francs each, paid in advance.”
CHAPTER II
AT this unexpected announcement Martin exchanged a swift glance with Corinna. She smiled, drew a five franc piece from her purse and laid it on the table. Martin, wondering, did the same. The Marchand de Bonheur unbuttoned his frock coat and slipped the coins, with a professional air, into his waistcoat pocket.
“Mr. Overshaw,” said he, “you must understand, as our charming friend Corinna Hastings and indeed half the Quartier Latin understand, that for such happiness as it may be my good fortune to provide I do not charge one penny. But having to eke out a precarious livelihood, I make a fixed charge of five francs for every consultation, no matter whether it be for ten minutes or ten hours. And for the matter of that, ten hours is not my limit. I am at your service for an indefinite period of time, provided it be continuous.”
“That’s very good, indeed, of you,” said Martin. “I hope you’ll join us,” he added, as the waiter approached with three coffee cups.
“No, I thank you. I have already had my after dinner coffee. But if I might take the liberty of ordering something else——?”
“By all means,” said Martin hospitably. “What will you have? Cognac? Liqueur? Whisky and soda?”
Fortinbras held up his hand—it was the hand of a comfortable, drowsy prelate—and smiled. “I have not touched alcohol for many years. I find it blunts the delicacy of perception which is essential to a Marchand de Bonheur in the exercise of his calling. Auguste will give me a syrop de framboises à l’eau.”
“Bien, m’sieu,” said Auguste.
“On the other hand, I shall smoke with pleasure one of your excellent English cigarettes. Thanks. Allow me.”
With something of the grand manner he held a lighted match to Corinna’s cigarette and to Martin’s. Then he blew it out and lit another for his own.
“A superstition,” said he, by way of apology. “It arises out of the Russian funeral ritual in which the three altar candles are lit by the same taper. To apply the same method of illumination to three worldly things like cigars or cigarettes is regarded as an act of impiety and hence as unlucky. For two people to dip their hands together in the same basin, without making the sign of the cross in the water, is unlucky on account of the central incident of the Last Supper, and to spill the salt as you are absent-mindedly doing, Corinna, is a violation of the sacred symbol of sworn friendship.”
“That’s all very interesting,” said Corinna calmly. “But what are Martin Overshaw and I to do to be happy?”
Fortinbras looked from one to the other with benevolent shrewdness and inhaled a long puff of smoke.
“What about our young medical student friend, Camille Fargot?”
Corinna flushed red—as only pale blondes can flush. “What do you know about Camille?” she demanded.
“Everything—and nothing. Come, come. It’s my business to keep a paternal eye on you children. Where is he?”
“Who the deuce is Camille?” thought Martin.
“He’s at Bordeaux, safe in the arms of his ridiculous mother,” replied Corinna tartly.
“Good, good,” said Fortinbras. “And you, Mr. Overshaw, where is the lady on whom you have set your affections?”
Martin laughed frankly. “Heaven knows. There isn’t one. The Princesse lointaine, perhaps, whom I’ve never seen.”
Fortinbras again looked from one to the other. “This complicates matters,” said he. “On the other hand, perhaps, it simplifies them. There being nothing common, however, to your respective roads to happiness, each case must be dealt with separately. Place aux dames—Corinna will first expose to me the sources of her divine discontent. Proceed, Corinna.”
She drummed with her fingers on the table, and little wrinkles lined her young forehead. Martin pushed back his chair.
“Hadn’t I better go for a walk until it is my turn to be interviewed?”
Corinna bade him not be silly. Whatever she had to say he was welcome to hear. It would be better if he did hear it; then he might appreciate the lesser misery of his own plight.
“I’m an utter, hopeless failure,” she cried with an air of defiance.
“Good,” said Fortinbras.
“I can’t paint worth a cent.”
“Good,” said Fortinbras.
“That old beast Delafosse says I’ll never learn to draw and I’m