Free Saratoga Trunk by Edna Ferber

on either hip.
    Kaka had whisked into the carriage, the coachman had whipped up the listiess nags, they were off to the accompaniment of squeaking springs and clattering hoofs and the high shrill cackle of Kaka’s rare laughter.
    Clio Dulaine’s eyes were blazing; her fists were clenched; she craned to stare back at the tall blue-coated figure that had recovered the hat and now, standing at the Market curb, was brushing its sullied whiteness with one coat sleeve even while he gazed at the swaying vehicle bouncing over the cobblestones toward the Cathedral.
    “I’ll whip him! I’ll take his uniform away from him. I’ll send him up North among the savages in New York State. I’ll never allow him to walk out with me again. I’ll lock him in the garçonnière on bread and water. I’ll—”
    “Oh, so Madame la Comtesse enjoys to have loutish cowboys from Texas speak to her on the street. What next! Even your aunt Belle—”
    “Shut up! Do you want to be slapped here in front of the Cathedral!”
    Kaka took another tack. She began to whimper, her monkeyish face screwed into a wrinkled knot of woe. “I wish I had died when my Rita bébé died. I wish I could die now. I promised her I’d take care of you. It’s no use. Common. Common as dirt.” The carriage came to a halt before the church, Clio stepped out, her head held much too high for a Sunday penitent. “Wait here,” Kaka instructed the driver, her air of injured innocence exchanged for a brisk and businesslike manner, “and if that lout in the market asks you if we are inside say no, we left on foot. There’ll be pourboire for you if you do as I say.”
    Within the cool dim cathedral Clio’s head was meekly bowed, her lips moved silently, she wiped away a tear as she prayed for the souls of the dead, for her lovely unfortunate mother, for her father, for her lusty aunt, but her eyes swam this way and that to see if, in the twilight gray of the aisles and pillars, she could discern a tall waiting figure. Out again into the blinding white sunshine of the Place d’Armes, the carriage was there, awaiting her; Cupide was there perched on the coachman’s box, the reins in his own tiny hands; the Sunday throngs were there, but no graceful lounging Texan, no clarence drawn by long-tailed bays.
    “Oh!” The girl’s exclamation of disappointment was as involuntary as the sound of protest under pain. Kaka was jubilant. They had thrown him off. He had overheard the driver speaking of the lake. Plainly Clio was pouting.
    “It’s too late for Begué’s, don’t you think, Kaka? And too hot. Let’s drive out to the lake, h’m? I’m not hungry. All that jambalaya.”
    Cupide had wrought a startling change in the broken-down chariot. Evidently he had brought back with him from the house sundry oddments and elegancies with which to refurbish his lady’s carriage. A whisk broom had been vigorously plied, for the ancient cushions were dustless now and the floor cloth as well. Over the carriage seat he had thrown a wine-red silk shawl so that the gray faille should not be sullied further. He had rubbed the metal buckles of the rusty harness, he had foraged in the basement of th c garçonnière for his cherished equipment of Paris days and had brought out the check reins, which now held the nags’ heads high in a position of astonished protest. He himself, in his maroon livery, was perched on the driver’s seat, his little feet barely reaching the dashboard against which he braced himself. It was the Negro, dispossessed but admiring, who clambered down to assist the two into the transformed coach.
    “Never see such a funny little maringouin! He climb up there he make them nags look like steppers. Look him now! Hi-yah!”
    Sulkily Clio took her place on the wine-silk shawl against which her gray gown glowed the pinker. Kaka triumphantly took the little seat facing her, her back to the coachman’s seat. “Begué’s!” she commanded over her shoulder to