“Now we have it! Do you hear, Madame Gourd? Monsieur Mouret is also of opinion that she has a lover. It’s clear, such things don’t come of themselves. Well, sir! for two months past I’ve been on the watch, and I’ve not yet seen the shadow of a man. How full of vice she must be! Ah! if I only found her chap, how I would chuck him out! But I can’t find him, and it’s that which worries me.”
“Perhaps no one comes,” Octave ventured to observe.
The doorkeeper looked at him with surprise.
“That would not be natural. Oh! I’m determined I’ll catch him. I’ve still six weeks before me, for I got the landlord to give her notice to quit in October. Just fancy her being confined here!” and, with his arm still thrust out, he pointed to the young woman, who was painfully wending her way up the servants’ staircase. Madame Gourd was obliged to calm him: he took the respectability of the house too much to heart; he would end by making himself ill. Then, mother Pérou having dared to manifest her presence by a discreet cough, he returned to her, and coolly deducted the sou she had charged for the odd quarter of an hour. She was at length going off with her twelve francs sixty centimes, when he offered to take her back, but at three sous an hour only. She burst into tears, and accepted.
“I shall always be able to get some one,” said he. “You’re no longer strong enough; you don’t even do two sous’ worth.”
Octave felt his mind relieved as he returned to his room for a minute. On the third floor he caught up Madame Juzeur, who was also going to her apartments. She was obliged now to run down every morning after Louise, who loitered at the different shops.
“How proud you are becoming,” said she, with her sharp smile. “One can see very well that you are being spoilt elsewhere.”
These words once more aroused all the young man’s anxiety. He followed her into her drawing-room, pretending to joke with her the while. Only one of the curtains was slightly drawn back, and the carpet and the hangings before the doors subdued still more this alcove-like light; and the noise of the street did not penetrate more than to the extent of a faint buzz, in this room as soft as down. She made him seat himself beside her on the low, wide sofa. But, as he did not take her hand and kiss it, she asked him archly:
“Do you, then, no longer love me?”
He blushed, and protested that he adored her. Then she gave him her hand of her own accord, with a little stifled laugh; and he was obliged to raise it to his lips, so as to dispel her suspicions, if she had any. But she almost immediately withdrew it again.