"Sacré bleu! I can't, monsieur! I'm stuck like a fish on a gaff! My skirts----"
This startling intelligence, while it relieved his immediate anxiety, involved the young man in a painful quandary. He dared not call for help; he was likely to be arrested in any case; he could not go away and leave the girl dangling there. She was at least three feet beyond his extreme reach.
"Let's see," he said, hastily grabbing his lantern to make an examination.
"Oh, put out that light!" exclaimed the girl.
"Mon Dieu! monsieur, I don't wish you to see! No! I should--put down the lantern!"
Having complied with this request, he stood under her in despair.
"Can't you tear the--the--what-you-may-call-it loose?"
"No; it's my skirt,--my dress,--I'm slipping out of it. Look out, monsieur, for--I'm--coming--oh!"
And come she did, head first, minus the dress skirt, plump into the startled young man's arms.
"Me voilà!" said Fouchette, gaining her feet and lightly shaking her ruffled remains together, as if she were a young pullet that had calmly fluttered down from the roost.
"Well, you're a bird!" he ejaculated, the more embarrassed of the two.
"Mon Dieu! monsieur, but for you I'd soon have been a dead bird! I thank you ever so much."
She reached up at him and succeeded in pecking a little kiss on his chin. It was her first attempt at the masculine mouth and she could scarcely be censured if she missed it.
"It certainly was a lucky chance that I came this way at the moment," he said.
He was surveying her now by the light of his lantern; and he smiled at her slight figure in the short petticoat. Her blind confidence in him and her general assurance amused him.
"Where were you thinking of going, mademoiselle?"
The young man almost dropped his lantern. Paris seemed out of reach to him.
"Er--well, mademoiselle, climbing a tree and throwing one's self head over heels over a wall--er--and----"
"And leaving ones skirt hanging on the spikes----"
"Yes,--is not the customary way for young ladies to start for Paris. But I suppose you know what you are about."
Fouchette glanced up at the offending member of her attire which she had cast from her.
"Never mind that,--I'll return and get it. Come with me, mademoiselle. I live near by, and my mother and sisters will protect you for the time being. Come! Where's your hat?"