“I have just seen her. She’s rather good looking.”
The worthy landlady jumped on her chair. “Rather good looking!” she interrupted. “You must be hard to please, my dear sir; for I, who am a judge, I affirm that you might hunt Paris over for four whole days without finding such a handsome girl. Rather good looking! A girl who has hair that comes down to her knees, a dazzling complexion, eyes as big as this, and teeth whiter than that cat’s. All right, my friend. You’ll wear out more than one pair of boots running after women before you catch one like her.”
That was exactly Maxence’s opinion; and yet with his coldest look,
“Has she been long your tenant, dear Mme. Fortin?” he asked.
“A little over a year. She was here during the siege; and just then, as she could not pay her rent, I was, of course, going to send her off; but she went straight to the commissary of police, who came here, and forbade me to turn out either her or anybody else. As if people were not masters in their own house!”
“That was perfectly absurd!” objected Maxence, who was determined to gain the good graces of the landlady.
“Never heard of such a thing!” she went on. “Compel you to lodge people free! Why not feed them too? In short, she remained so long, that, after the Commune, she owed me a hundred and eighty francs. Then she said, that, if I would let her stay, she would pay me each month in advance, besides the rent, ten francs on the old account. I agreed, and she has already paid up twenty francs.”
“Poor girl!” said Maxence.
But Mme. Fortin shrugged her shoulders.
“Really,” she replied, “I don’t pity her much; for, if she only wanted, in forty-eight hours I should be paid, and she would have something else on her back besides that old black rag. I tell her every day, ‘In these days, my child, there is but one reliable friend, which is better than all others, and which must be taken as it comes, without making any faces if it is a little dirty: that’s money.’ But all my preaching goes for nothing. I might as well sing.”