"I do not object to her knowing. But I am not interested in Madame Aurore." My mother dismissed her.
The fact was that none of the torrent of talk (carried on now in a whisper, with elaborate deference to the chère malade)—none of it had to do with Madame Aurore herself. We had had to ask her all of the little we came to know about her. She had no regular business in London. Ah, no, she was too often ill. She merely went out to work when she was "strong enuss."
"Zen too, ze leedle gal. I haf to sink about her." The thought seemed one to harass. All would be different if Mme. Aurore had a shop.
We agreed that to have a shop full of lovely French models, would be delightful. And by-and-by the little Aurore would help in the shop.
"Nevair!" said Mme. Aurore with sudden passion. She knew all about being in shops. It was to prevent her daughter from knowing, too, that Mme. Aurore must make money. The little Aurore should go to the Convent school—which seemed somehow an odd destination for the daughter of Madame Aurore. She spoke of it as a far dream, beckoning.
"Nossing—but nossing can be done in zis world vidout monny." And what people will do for money—oh, little did we know! But the world was like that. Eh bien, Madame Aurore had not made it. Had she done so, it would be a better place.
Betty and I smiled at the pains taken to make this clear. Madame Aurore professed herself revolted by an arrangement which made "ze goodness or ze badness of a pairson" dependent upon where you happened to find yourself.
"Par example you can be extrêmement good here." More. She would go so far as to say you must be a genius to discover how to be bad here.
Through Betty's laughing protest, the little woman went on with seriousness to assure us it was "une chose bien différente dans ..." she checked herself, bit off the end of her thread, and spat it out.
"It is different, you mean, in Crutchley Street?" Betty asked. And, though she got no answer, I think we both understood the anxious mother to be thinking of the small Aurore left all alone in one of the world's Mean Streets. Perhaps the reason Betty got no answer to her question was that she had slightly raised her voice in putting it, and I had said, "Sh!"