k of his head. He joined her and
swore that he would see her again. It was not Aristide Pujol who would
allow her to be rent in pieces by the jaws of that crocodile, M.
Bocardon. Faith, he would defend her to the last drop of his blood. He
would do all manner of gasconading things.

"But what can you do, my poor M. Pujol?" she asked.

"You will see," he replied.

They parted. He watched her until she became a speck and, having joined
the other speck, her husband, passed out of sight. Then he set out
through the burning gardens towards the Hotel du Luxembourg, at the
other end of the town.

Aristide had fallen in love. He had fallen in love with Provencal fury.
He had done the same thing a hundred times before; but this, he told
himself, was the _coup de foudre_--the thunderbolt. The beautiful
Arlesienne filled his brain and his senses. Nothing else in the wide
world mattered. Nothing else in the wide world occupied his mind. He
sped through the hot streets like a meteor in human form. A stout man,
sipping syrup and water in the cool beneath the awning of the Cafe de la
Bourse, rose, looked wonderingly after him, and resumed his seat, wiping
a perspiring brow.

A short while afterwards Aristide, valise in hand, presented himself at
the bureau of the Hotel de la Curatterie. It was a shabby little hotel,
with a shabby little oval sign outside, and was situated in the narrow
street of the same name. Within, it was clean and well kept. On the
right of the little dark entrance-hall was the _salle a manger_, on
the left the bureau and an unenticing hole labelled _salon de
correspondance_. A very narrow passage led to the kitchen, and the rest
of the hall was blocked by the staircase. An enormous man with a simple,
woe-begone fat face and a head of hair like a circular machine-brush was
sitting by the bureau window in his shirt-sleeves. Aristide addressed
him.

"M. Bocardon?"

"At your service, monsieur."

"Can I have a bedroom?"

"Certainly." He waved a hand towards a set of black sample boxes studded
with brass nails and bound with straps that lay in the hall. "The
omnibus has brought your boxes. You are M. Lambert?"

"M. Bocardon," said Aristide, in a lordly way, "I am M. Aristide Pujol,
and not a commercial traveller. I have come to see the beauties of
Nimes, and have chosen this hotel because I have the honour to be a
distant relation of your wife, Mme. Zette Bocardon, whom I have not seen
for many years. How