Mlle. Fouchette closed the door with a snap and confronted her visitor with a hardening face.
"I thought it was you, Fouchette!"
"Madeleine, you're drunk!"
"No, no, no, no! I have had such a—a—turn, deary,—pardon me! But she had the same figure,—the same hair,—mon Dieu!"
"Who?"
"Oh! I don't know, Fouchette,—the woman with him, you know,—with Henri, Fouchette!"
The speaker seemed overcome with mingled terror and anger. She stopped to collect her thoughts,—to get her breath.
"What a fool you are, Madeleine! I wouldn't go on that way for the best man living! No!"
And Fouchette thought of Jean Marot, and mentally included him.
"Oh! Fouchette, dear, you do not know! You cannot know! You never loved! You cannot love! You are calm and cold and indifferent,—it is your nature. Mine! I am consumed by fire,—it grips my very vitals! Ah! Fouchette!"