Read Ebook: Papa Bouchard by Seawell Molly Elliot Glackens William J Illustrator

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Ebook has 182 lines and 9377 words, and 4 pages

It is Satanita."

"Satanita! Rather suggestive, eh?"

"I should say so. Little Satan; and I match my name."

"You are the sweetest, most innocent and captivating little devil I ever saw."

"Thank you. You should see me dance and hear me sing. The Pouters, as you call them, are not a patch on me."

"I can well believe it."

"I have another name--I am called the Queen of the Harem-Scarem."

"No doubt you are."

"Now," continued L?ontine, seating herself with a confidential air beside Major Falli?re, "what do you think of our host, Victor de Meneval?"

"One of the best fellows in the world."

"Devoted to his wife, eh?"

"Yes. I have never seen her, but I hear she is a charming creature, and Victor is truly attached to her."

"This looks like it, doesn't it?" cried L?ontine, pointing to the supper table.

"Yes, why not?"

"And how about his wife?"

"Oh," replied the Major, with easy confidence, "she would probably make an awful row if she knew it--but she'll never know it. De Meneval has coached me--I know exactly what to tell L?ontine when I meet her--it so happens that I have not met her yet. But I hear she is a charming young woman."

"She will be twice as charming to you when she finds that you have been leading her husband off into giving suppers to--to--little devils like me for example," said L?ontine, very solemnly.

"Oh, de Meneval and I have mapped out our campaign. We have a large and trusty assortment of lies, expressly for L?ontine's consumption, and she will swallow every one of them."

Now, this was very provoking of the Major, but something in his kind eyes, his way of standing up for Victor, his candid praise of herself, gave L?ontine a sudden impulse to tell him the whole story of what was weighing on her and perplexing her and had driven her out to Melun at that hour of the night. She knew all about him, what a generous, sympathetic fellow he was, in spite of his primness and propriety--in short, that he was a dear old thing. So, with eyes flashing with mischief, and with smiles dimpling her fair face, L?ontine said, demurely:

"I have still another name besides Satanita and Queen of the Harem-Scarem. Can't you guess it?"

"No. I am not a clairvoyant."

Poor P. M. P! He stared at her for a full minute, glared wildly about him, and then, jumping up, made a dash for the door, from which L?ontine, laughing till the tears ran down her cheeks, dragged him back.

"What are you running away for?" she asked, forcing him to a seat beside her.

"Because--because--" the Major tore his hair, "oh, de Meneval will certainly shoot me when he hears that I chucked you under the chin!"

Major Falli?re, burying his head in his hands, groaned aloud, and then all at once the absurdity of the thing struck him, and he burst into a howl of laughter.

L?ontine joined him. They laughed and laughed, and when they would get a little quiet L?ontine would motion as if to chuck him under the chin again, and Falli?re would go off into renewed spasms.

Presently, however, L?ontine grew grave. The instant success of her impromptu personation had given her an idea. She wanted revenge--a sharp revenge--on de Meneval, and she saw a way to get it.

"Listen, and be quiet," she said to Falli?re. "Victor deserves to be punished. I will tell you why. He has always represented to me that he led the quietest kind of a life here--nothing but attention to his military duties, and his evenings spent in the seclusion of his own room, with nothing but ballistics and my picture for company."

Falli?re could not refrain from a soft whistle.

"And he professed to be so glad that you were ordered to Melun, because you were so much more sedate than the other officers. He complained that they spend too much time at the Pigeon House, while he had entirely given up frequenting that fascinating place."

Falli?re whistled a little louder.

"I had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to take me to supper there the other night. Now, what do I find? That he has been throwing sand into my eyes all the time. Look!" L?ontine waved her arms dramatically toward the table. "Oughtn't he to be punished?"

"Certainly he ought," replied Falli?re, with the ready acquiescence of a bachelor who thinks that married men should be made to toe the line.

"Very well. You will help me?"

"You may count on me."

L?ontine rose and looked around her. On the sideboard sat a couple of bottles of mineral water, and on the floor near by a wine cooler full of bottles of champagne. She cleverly transferred the labels from two of the champagne bottles to the apollinaris bottles and then put them in the wine cooler.

"I think I can drink at least a quart of apollinaris," she said.

"And I'll see that you get apollinaris every time," replied that crafty villain of a Falli?re, laughing.

"And I'm Satanita, and I shall act Satanita until I have made Victor sorry enough he ever played me any tricks."

"Oh, no, you won't! At the first sign of distress on his part you will throw the whole business to the winds, fall on his neck and implore his forgiveness. I know women well."

"Of course you do--having never been married. But wait and see if I don't give him a bad quarter of an hour. And I reckon on your assistance."

"I will stand by you to the last."

They were interrupted at this point by a great sound of scuffling outside the door, mingled with shrieks of girlish laughter. The door flew open, revealing three remarkably pretty girls--Aglaia, Olga and Louise--dragging in an elderly gentleman by main force and his coat tails. The elderly gentleman was resisting mildly but with no great vigor, and it was plain he was not particularly averse to the roguish company in which he found himself. And the elderly gentleman was--Papa Bouchard!

One of these merry imps from the Pigeon House had possessed herself of his hat, which she had stuck on her curly head; another one had laid violent hands on his umbrella, while the third and sauciest of the lot, Aglaia, had robbed him of his spectacles, which she wore on her tiptilted nose. Papa Bouchard, puffing, protesting, frightened, but laughing in spite of himself, was saying:

"Young ladies, young ladies, I really cannot remain, as you insist, to supper. I do not even know the name of the host on this occasion. I am quite unused to these orgies. I am out here this evening with my servant merely for the purpose of completing a business transaction."

A chorus of "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" saluted this speech, and Mademoiselle Aglaia, Papa Bouchard's chief tormentor, asked, solemnly:

"Is your business engagement with a lady or a gentleman?"

And when Papa Bouchard, in the innocence of his soul, replied, "It is with a lady," each one of the Pouters, as the young ladies of the Pigeon House were called, pretended to fall over in a dead faint.

Papa Bouchard, much alarmed, ran from one to the other, trying to revive them; but while he was rubbing the brow and slapping the hands of each in turn, Louise suddenly came to life, and running and locking the door, put the key into her pocket, so that Papa Bouchard had no means of escape except out of the third-story window or up the chimney.

And at that moment his eye fell on L?ontine.

Pity Papa Bouchard! He really had no intention of attending so gay a party. He had spent the whole evening anxiously watching for Madame Vernet. She had not arrived, or at least had not seen fit to reveal herself, and while he was hovering about the entrance to the terrace garden looking for her, these three merry girls had come along, had swooped down on him without the least warning, and had carried him off bodily to de Meneval's supper. Papa Bouchard had not the slightest idea of where he was when he was plumped down in Captain de Meneval's room. But one look around him--the sight of L?ontine--revealed his whole dreadful predicament to him. It was too much for poor Papa Bouchard!

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