At the noise made by mademoiselle, Germinie sprang to her feet and passed her hand over her eyes.—"Yes?" she said, as if some one had called her; her eyes were wandering.
"What's happened?" said Mademoiselle de Varandeuil in alarm; "did you fall? Is anything the matter with you?"
"With me? no," Germinie replied; "I fell asleep. What time is it? Nothing's the matter. Ah! what a fool!"
And she began to shake the mattress, turning her back to her mistress to hide the flush of intoxication on her face.
XXVI
One Sunday morning Jupillon was dressing in the room Germinie had furnished for him. His mother was sitting by, gazing at him with the wondering pride expressed in the eyes of mothers among the common people in presence of a son who dresses like a monsieur.
"You're dressed up like the young man on the first floor!" she said. "I should think it was his coat. I don't mean to say fine things don't look well on you, too——"
Jupillon, intent upon tying his cravat, made no reply.
"You'll play the deuce with the poor girls to-day!" continued Mère Jupillon, giving to her voice an accent of insinuating sweetness: "Look you, bibi, let me tell you this, you great bad boy: if a young woman goes wrong, so much the worse for her! that's their look-out. You're a man, aren't you? you've got the age and the figure and everything. I can't always keep you in leading-strings. So, I said to myself, as well one as another. That one will do. And I fixed her so that she wouldn't see anything. Yes, Germinie would do, as you seemed to like her. That prevented you from wasting your money on bad women—and then I didn't see anything out of the way in the girl till now. But now it won't do at all. They're telling stories in the quarter—a heap of horrible things about us. A pack of vipers! We're above all that, I know. When one has been an honest woman all her life, thank God! But you never know what will happen—mademoiselle would only have to put the end of her nose into her maid's affairs. Why there's the law—the bare idea gives me a turn. What do you say to that, bibi, eh?"