Lisa had turned her head towards the street, listening very attentively, but apparently unwilling to show it. The old maid paused, hoping that one of the others would question her; and then, in a lower tone, she added: “They had a woman with them. Oh, I don’t mean Monsieur Quenu, of course! I didn’t say that; I don’t know—”
“It must be Clemence,” interrupted La Sarriette; “a big scraggy creature who gives herself all sorts of airs just because she went to boarding school. She lives with a threadbare usher. I’ve seen them together; they always look as though they were taking each other off to the police station.”
“Oh, yes; I know,” replied the old maid, who, indeed, knew everything about Charvet and Clemence, and whose only purpose was to alarm Lisa.
The mistress of the pork shop, however, never flinched. She seemed to be absorbed in watching something of great interest in the market yonder. Accordingly the old maid had recourse to stronger measures. “I think,” said she, addressing herself to Madame Lecœur, “that you ought to advise your brother-in-law to be careful. Last night they were shouting out the most shocking things in that little room. Men really seem to lose their heads over politics. If anyone had heard them, it might have been a very serious matter for them.”
“Oh! Gavard will go his own way,” sighed Madame Lecœur. “It only wanted this to fill my cup. I shall die of anxiety, I am sure, if he ever gets arrested.”
As she spoke, a gleam shot from her dim eyes. La Sarriette, however, laughed and wagged her little face, bright with the freshness of the morning air.
“You should hear what Jules says of those who speak against the Empire,” she remarked. “They ought all to be thrown into the Seine, he told me; for it seems there isn’t a single respectable person amongst them.”
“Oh! there’s no harm done, of course, so long as only people like myself hear their foolish talk,” resumed Mademoiselle Saget. “I’d rather cut my hand off, you know, than make mischief. Last night now, for instance, Monsieur Quenu was saying——”
She again paused. Lisa had started slightly.
“Monsieur Quenu was saying that the Ministers and Deputies and all who are in power ought to be shot.”