The irascible old gentleman regarded both of the adjuncts of life de garçon with a bitter smile. Still it was something like a smile, and the girl was quick to take advantage of it.
"Oh, this is a special occasion, monsieur,—a reconciliation dinner."
"A reconciliation dinner, eh?" growled the old man, suspicious of some sly allusion to himself and son. "And will you be good enough to speak for this dummy here and inform me who is to be reconciled and what the devil you've got to do with the operation?"
"To be sure!" cried Mlle. Fouchette, with affected gayety. "Only I must begin at the last first. I'm the next-door neighbor of Monsieur Jean, your son, and I take care of his rooms for him—for a consideration. My appartement is over there, monsieur, if you please. We are poor, but we must eat——"
"And drink champagne," put in the elder Marot, significantly.
"Is not champagne more fitting for the reconciliation of two men who were once friends than would be violent words?" she asked, with spirit.
"Who pays for it? It depends upon who pays for it!" He tried to ward off the conclusion by hurling this at both of them.
Jean reddened. He knew quite well the insinuation. It is not an unusual thing for Frenchmen to live on the product of a woman's shame.
"As if you should ask me if I were a thief, father!" protested the young man, now scarcely able to restrain his tears.
"And as if we had not pinched and saved and economized and all that! And can you look around you and not see that?" She had hard work to smother her indignation.