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Updated: May 27, 2025
"Then suppose we go and sit there," said poor Madame Valière. Poor Madame Dépine was seized with a cough, more protracted than any of which she had complained. "Provided it has not gone out in my absence," she stammered at last. "I will go first and see if it is in good trim." "No, no; it is not worth the trouble of moving." And Madame Valière drew her street-cloak closer round her slim form.
And so, shrinking and silent, and protected as far as possible by their big bonnets, the squat Madame Dépine and the skinny Madame Valière toiled up and down the dark, fusty stairs of the Hôtel des Tourterelles, often brushing against each other, yet sundered by icy infinities.
Madame Valière lost the clue to her movements, felt her suddenly as a stranger. But finally Madame Dépine drew herself together and led the way into the coiffeurs. The proprietor, who had reëntered his parlour, reëmerged gloomily. Madame Valière took the word. "We are thinking of ordering a wig." "Cash in advance, of course," said the coiffeur. "Comment!" cried Madame Valière, indignantly.
She trudged home as hastily as her legs could bear her. No, Madame Valière had not arrived. "They have persuaded her to stay another day," said Madame la Propriétaire. "She will come by the evening train, or she will write." Madame Dépine passed the evening at the Gare de Lyon, and came home heavy of heart and weary of foot.
It was true; it was heartbreaking. Madame Dépine made a reckless reference to her brooch, but the Princess had a gesture of horror. "And wear your heart on your shawl when your friends come?" she exclaimed poetically. "Sooner my watch shall go, since that at least is hidden in my bosom!" "Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Madame Dépine. "But if you sold the other things hidden in your bosom!"
But it was impossible for them, or any one else, to foresee how far those steps which they were willing to take, well improved, might have encouraged or forced them to go. They granted us some succours, and the very ship in which the Pretender was to transport himself was fitted out by Depine d'Anicant at the King of France's expense.
But the coiffeur measured it in sublime seriousness, putting his tape this way and that way, while Madame Valière's eyes danced in sympathetic excitement. "What an idea!" ejaculated Madame Valière. "To what end?" "Since you are here," returned Madame Dépine, indifferently. "You may as well leave your measurements. Then when you decide yourself Is it not so, monsieur?"
Unless, indeed, the lottery ? And so, when Madame Dépine received a sister-in-law from Tonnerre, or Madame Valière's nephew came up by the excursion train from that same quiet and incongruously christened townlet, the Parisian personage would receive the visitor in the darkest corner of the salon, with her back to the light, and a big bonnet on her head an imposing figure repeated duskily in the gold mirrors.
"Of her sister?" repeated Madame Dépine. "Yes; did I never tell you of her? A handsome creature, but she threw her bonnet over the mills." "But I thought that was the Princess." "The Princess, too. Her bonnet will also be found lying there." "No, no; I mean I thought the portrait was the Princess's." Madame la Propriétaire laughed. "She told you so?" "No, no; but but I imagined so."
She stooped and saw a shining glory a five-franc piece! "What is it?" said Madame Valière. "Nothing," said Madame Dépine, covering the coin with her foot. "My bootlace." And she bent down to pick up the coin, to fumble at her bootlace, and to cover her furious blush.
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