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From their first intimate days, she had always felt him aloof from her; as a soldier during the war she had found him the counterpart of the millions of men who had heroically fought; as an officer of high rank, as a General, she had stood, in her attitude towards him, in uneducated awe; as a General demobilized and a reincarnation of Petit Patou, he had inspired her with a familiarity bred not of contempt that was absurd but of disillusion.
But the audience, as far as applause could be the criterion, missed the exquisiteness of it, guffawed only at the broadest clowning and applauded finally just enough to keep up the heart of the management and Les Petit Patou. I have seen many harrowing things in the course of a complicated life; but this I reckon was one of the chief among them.
Everybody who had heard of Petit Patou would be mad to hear of General Lackaday, and all who had heard of soldier Andrew would be crazy to know about Petit Patou. You'd wake up in the morning like Byron and find yourself famous. You'd be the darling hero of the British Empire. But you always were a wooden-headed idiot...."
You only have to open your mouth and you get your lungs filled with them. It's a pestilential country and I've done with it." "All right," replied Andrew, "I'll run the show on my own." But the Palladium syndicate, willing to book "The Great Patapon and Little Patou" for a further term, declined to rebook Little Patou by himself.
"By Gum!" cried Andrew, "I believe you're right again." "I'm never wrong," said Bakkus. "Garcon!" He summoned the waiter and waved his hand towards the little accusing pile of saucers. "Monsieur always pays for my inspirations." We behold Petit Patou now definitely launched on his career. Perhaps Prepimpin had something to do with it. He was young, excellently trained, and expensive.
The idea of kissing her did not occur to him until he found himself alone and remembered the pretty idyll of their leave-taking long ago. He laughed, none too gaily. Between boy and girl and man and woman there was a vast difference. That was the beginning of the combination known a little while afterwards as Les Petit Patou.
On my question he stared at his cigar, twisting it backwards and forwards between his delicate thumb and two fingers, with the air of a man hesitating on a decision, until the inevitable happened; the long ash of the cigar fell over his trousers. He rose with a laugh and a damn and brushed himself. Then he said: "Did you ever hear of Les Petit Patou?" "No," said I, mystified.
I knew nothing more of his history till this April, when he told me he was Petit Patpu of the music-halls. His confidence has been given me bit by bit. The last time I saw you I had never heard of Madame Patou. It was you that guessed the woman in his life. I had no idea whether you were right or wrong."
But instead of one furnished room on the fifth floor, he can afford an apartment, salon, salle a manger, bedrooms, cabinet de toilette, on the prosperous second, which he retains all the year round. And Petit Patou can now stride through the waiting crowd in Moignon's antechamber and enter the sacred office, cigar in mouth, and with a "look here, mon vieux," put the fear of God into him.
"Elodie I present Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton, of whom you have heard me speak so much." To me "Madame Patou," said he. "Madame," said I. We shook hands. I professed enchantment. "I have spoken much about you to Captain Hylton," said Lackaday quickly. "So it seems," said I, following the good fellow's lead, "as if I were renewing an old acquaintance."
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