"There are folks who don't know their own minds," said Madame Broquette sententiously. "It isn't my fault, and I sincerely beg you to excuse me, doctor. If you want a good nurse you will be satisfied, for I have just received some excellent ones from the provinces. I will show you."
Herminie, meanwhile, had not condescended to raise her nose from her novel. She remained ensconced in her armchair, still reading, with a weary, bored expression on her anaemic countenance. Mathieu, after sitting down a little on one side, contented himself with looking on, while Boutan stood erect, attentive to every detail, like a commander reviewing his troops. And the procession began.
Having opened a door which communicated with the common room, Madame Broquette, assuming the most noble airs, leisurely introduced the pick of her nurses, in groups of three, each with her infant in her arms. About a dozen were thus inspected: short ones with big heavy limbs, tall ones suggesting maypoles, dark ones with coarse stiff hair, fair ones with the whitest of skins, quick ones and slow ones, ugly ones and others who were pleasant-looking. All, however, wore the same nervous, silly smile, all swayed themselves with embarrassed timidity, the anxious mien of the bondswoman at the slave market, who fears that she may not find a purchaser. They clumsily tried to put on graceful ways, radiant with internal joy directly a customer seemed to nibble, but clouding over and casting black glances at their companions when the latter seemed to have the better chance. Out of the dozen the doctor began by setting three aside, and finally he detained but one, in order that he might study her more fully.
"One can see that Monsieur le Docteur knows his business," Madame Broquette allowed herself to say, with a flattering smile. "I don't often have such pearls. But she has only just arrived, otherwise she would probably have been engaged already. I can answer for her as I could for myself, for I have put her out before."
The nurse was a dark woman of about twenty-six, of average height, built strongly enough, but having a heavy, common face with a hard-looking jaw. Having already been in service, however, she held herself fairly well.
"So that child is not your first one?" asked the doctor.
"No, monsieur, he's my third."
Then Boutan inquired into her circumstances, studied her papers, took her into Madame Broquette's private room for examination, and on his return make a minute inspection of her child, a strong plump boy, some three months old, who in the interval had remained very quiet on an armchair. The doctor seemed satisfied, but he suddenly raised his head to ask, "And that child is really your own?"
"Oh! monsieur, where could I have got him otherwise?"
"Oh! my girl, children are borrowed, you know."