There I found Aristide Pujol awaiting me at the corner of the narrow street in which the hotel was situated. He was wearing--like most of the young bloods of Provence in winter-time--a short, shaggy, yet natty goat-skin coat, ornamented with enormous bone buttons, and a little cane valise stood near by on the kerb of the square.
He was not alone. Walking arm in arm with him was a stout, elderly woman of swarthy complexion and forbidding aspect. She was attired in a peasant's or small shopkeeper's rusty Sunday black and an old-fashioned black bonnet prodigiously adorned with black plumes and black roses. Beneath this bonnet her hair was tightly drawn up from her forehead; heavy eyebrows overhung a pair of small, crafty eyes, and a tuft of hair grew on the corner of a prognathous jaw. She might have been about seven-and-forty.
Aristide Pujol, unlinking himself from this unattractive female, advanced and saluted me with considerable deference.
As I am neither a duke nor an archbishop, but a humble member of the lower automobiling classes, the high-flown title startled me.
"Monseigneur, will you permit me," said he, in French, "to present to you Mme. Gougasse? Madame is the _patronne_ of the Café de l'Univers, at Carcassonne, which doubtless you have frequented, and she is going to do me the honour of marrying me to-morrow."
[Illustration: ANYTHING LESS CONGRUOUS AS THE BRIDE-ELECT OF THE DEBONAIR ARISTIDE PUJOL IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE]
The unexpectedness of the announcement took my breath away.
Anyone less congruous as the bride-elect of the debonair Aristide Pujol it was impossible to imagine. However, it was none of my business. I raised my hat politely to the lady.
"Madame, I offer you my sincere felicitations. As an entertaining husband I am sure you will find M. Aristide Pujol without a rival."
"_Je vous remercie, monseigneur_," she replied, in what was obviously her best company manner. "And if ever you will deign to come again to the Café de l'Univers at Carcassonne we will esteem it a great honour."
"And so you're going to get married to-morrow?" I remarked, by way of saying something. To congratulate Aristide Pujol on his choice lay beyond my power of hypocrisy.