The Adventuress Read Online Free Page A

are the meek” had been rendered as “blessed are the debonair”—I turned to tell Irene that she was free to scamper directly over to the Avenue Filthy Lucre.
    But Irene no longer followed me.
    I turned again, feeling a mild thrill of panic. How would I ask these shriveled book vendors, whose French was no doubt whistled through toothless gums, where my companion had gone?
    “Oh, dear,” I said, comforted by the sound of an English voice, even my own.
    I looked up and down the avenue. Below the wall, on the walkway edging the river itself, the odd stroller was visible, but none wore a red felt bonnet with an upstanding crimson ostrich plume.
    Oh! how would I describe Irene’s garb in my crippled French? I was lost beyond chapeau. La plume de ma tante did not seem to suffice for an ostrich feather.
    I had removed my gloves before examining the dusty volumes, for I hadn’t wished to dirty the white kid. Now my bare hands flew to my face, where icy fingers chilled my fevered cheeks. I turned again, ready to screech Irene’s name publicly, like a fishmonger, if need be.
    At last!—the very bonnet, bobbing along down by the river. I hastened to find stairs leading below.
    Irene stood on a stone embankment by the gentle, lapping Seine.
    “Irene!” I called from above.
    She turned with an expression of intense distraction, even satisfaction. I had not seen her so vibrant recently, save in Godfrey’s company.
    “Come down, Nell!” she commanded joyfully. “Watch your step! They’ve found something in the water.”
    I paused in my instant obedience. “A dead fish, likely.”
    Irene was craning her neck like a cockney gawker. “Oh, it looks a great deal bigger than that. Do hurry, Nell! I think it’s a body. I don’t want to miss it.”
    “Irene, come back! Irene... Well, you shall certainly not approach those rude men unchaperoned.”
    Once I had committed to the stairs, my feet stuttered down the risers, rushing me as if eager toward a knot of rough-looking men crowding the embankment.
    Nearer the water, the picturesque river’s native stench reared its noxious head. I took one great breath and determined to inhale through my mouth thereafter. This resolve lent my voice the accents of an adenoidal child.
    “I-reend. I-reend. Please wade, wade!”
    She did not wait for me, and fortunately did not take my last instruction literally, but paused just before her black kid boots met the murky waves that licked the stone.
    The men huddled over some object—seemingly a tangle of netting. I breathed easier, but not through my nose; apparently we were merely witnessing a submerged log being dragged ashore.
    Then the men, wet to their knees, struggled back, and I saw a fish-white human form rolled up onto the sopping pavement.
    In a country parsonage it is not uncommon to view death at close quarters; certainly I have seen my share of village corpses arranged for burial. Funerals were as frequent among my father’s flock as christenings, life and death maintaining a particularly noticeable balance in a small parish.
    Yet something about death by water blends the most awful aspects of mortality with remembrances of the church’s joyful, liquid welcome of each soul to the world. It seems a sacrilege, this fatal, final, unnatural baptism; at least so it has always struck me.
    The men were grunting in particularly guttural French (for all French is guttural; so much for the language of “love”). A fellow in a navy blue jacket and fisherman’s sweater straightened from studying the corpse to regard Irene and myself.
    His gesture was as short and sharp as his words. He ordered us away. I gladly turned to comply, but Irene swept a fist to her hip, brushing aside a layer of gentility as another woman might lift her veil. Her voice dropped into throaty French. I had before me a soubrette from the Comedie Français, long familiar as a shockingly bold Paris type.
    “Ah, Monsieur,” she trilled. Rapid French