Nana took up the stems of some violets she was rolling, and the whole workroom turned its attention to the man in question. He was a well-dressed individual wearing a frock coat and he looked about fifty years old. He had a pale face, very serous and dignified in expression, framed round with a well trimmed grey beard. He remained for an hour in front of a herbalist’s shop with his eyes fixed on the Venetian blinds of the workroom. The flower-girls indulged in little bursts of laughter which died away amid the noise of the street, and while leaning forward, to all appearance busy with their work, they glanced askance so as not to lose sight of the gentleman.
“Ah!” remarked Leonie, “he wears glasses. He’s a swell. He’s waiting for Augustine, no doubt.”
But Augustine, a tall, ugly, fair-haired girl, sourly answered that she did not like old men; whereupon Madame Lerat, jerking her head, answered with a smile full of underhand meaning:
“That is a great mistake on your part, my dear; the old ones are more affectionate.”
At this moment Leonie’s neighbor, a plump little body, whispered something in her ear and Leonie suddenly threw herself back on her chair, seized with a fit of noisy laughter, wriggling, looking at the gentleman and then laughing all the louder. “That’s it. Oh! that’s it,” she stammered. “How dirty that Sophie is!”
“What did she say? What did she say?” asked the whole workroom, aglow with curiosity.
Leonie wiped the tears from her eyes without answering. When she became somewhat calmer, she began curling her flowers again and declared, “It can’t be repeated.”
The others insisted, but she shook her head, seized again with a gust of gaiety. Thereupon Augustine, her left-hand neighbor, besought her to whisper it to her; and finally Leonie consented to do so with her lips close to Augustine’s ear. Augustine threw herself back and wriggled with convulsive laughter in her turn. Then she repeated the phrase to a girl next to her, and from ear to ear it traveled round the room amid exclamations and stifled laughter. When they were all of them acquainted with Sophie’s disgusting remark they looked at one another and burst out laughing together although a little flushed and confused. Madame Lerat alone was not in the secret and she felt extremely vexed.
“That’s very impolite behavior on your part, young ladies,” said she. “It is not right to whisper when other people are present. Something indecent no doubt! Ah! that’s becoming!”
She did not dare go so far as to ask them to pass Sophie’s remark on to her although she burned to hear it. So she kept her eyes on her work, amusing herself by listening to the conversation. Now no one could make even an innocent remark without the others twisting it around and connecting it with the gentleman on the sidewalk. Madame Lerat herself once sent them into convulsions of laughter when she said, “Mademoiselle Lisa, my fire’s gone out. Pass me yours.”