"But suppose you get mixed up in it?"
"Oh! she won't steal 'em——"
"The deuce she won't!"
"Well! if she does, it won't be from anyone but her mistress. Do you suppose her mademoiselle would have her pinched for that? She'll turn her off, and that'll be the end of it. We'll advise her to try the air in another quarter—off she goes!—and we sha'n't see her again. But it would be too stupid for her to steal. She'll arrange it somehow, she'll hunt round and turn things over. I don't know how, not I! but that's her affair, you understand. This is the time for her to show her talents. By the way, perhaps you don't know, they say her old woman's sick. If the dear lady should happen to step out and leave her all the stuff, as the story goes in the quarter—why, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have played see-saw with her, eh, mamma? We must put on gloves, you see, mamma, when we're dealing with people who may have four or five thousand a year come tumbling into their aprons."
"Oh! my God! what are you talking about? But after the way I treated her—oh! no, she'll never come back here."
"Well! I tell you I'll bring her back—and to-night at the latest," said Jupillon, rising, and rolling a cigarette between his fingers. "No excuses, you know," he said to his mother, "they won't do any good—and be cold to her. Act as if you received her only on my account, because you are weak. No one knows what may happen, we must always keep an anchor to windward."
XXX
Jupillon was walking back and forth on the sidewalk in front of Germinie's house when she came out.
"Good-evening, Germinie," he said, behind her.