'What's she doing downstairs? Up to some fresh wickedness, I'm sure! She'll never think of bringing me even a glass of water, you'll see!'
'But, Madame,' urged Véronique, 'it is you who drive her from you.'
'Ah! you don't know her! There never was such a hypocrite as she is. Before other people she pretends to be kind and generous, but there's nothing she wouldn't do or say when your back's turned. Yes, my good girl, you were the only one who saw things clearly on the day I first brought her here. If she had never come, we shouldn't now be in the state we are. She will prove the ruin of us all. Your master has suffered all the agonies of the damned since she has been in this house, and she has worried and distressed me till she has quite undermined my health; while as for my son, she made him lose his head entirely.'
'Oh, Madame! how can you say that when she is so kind and good to you all?'
Right up to the evening Madame Chanteau thus unburdened herself of her anger. She raved about everything, particularly about the abominable way in which Louise had been turned out of the house, though it was the money question that aroused her greatest anger. When Véronique, after dinner, was able to go down to the kitchen again she found Pauline there, occupying herself by putting the crockery away; and so the servant, in her turn, took the opportunity of unburdening herself of the angry indignation which was choking her.
'Ah! Mademoiselle, it is very good of you to bother about their plates. If I were you, I should smash the whole lot to bits!'
'What for?' the girl asked in astonishment.
'Because, whatever you were to do, you couldn't come up to half of what they accuse you of!'
Then she broke out angrily, raking up everything from the day of Pauline's arrival there.
'It would put God Almighty Himself into a rage to see such things! She has drained your money away sou by sou, and she has done it in the most shameless manner imaginable. Upon my word, to hear her talk one would suppose that it was she who had been keeping you. When she had your money in her secrétaire she made ever so much fuss about keeping it safe and untouched, but all that didn't prevent her greedy hands from digging pretty big holes in it. It's a nice piece of play-acting that she's been keeping up all this time, contriving to make you pay for those salt workshops and then keeping the pot boiling with what was left! Ah! I daresay you don't know, but if it hadn't been for you they would all have starved! She got into a pretty flurry when the people in Paris began to worry her about the accounts! Yes, indeed, you could have had her sent right off to the assize court if you had liked. But that didn't teach her any lesson; she's still robbing you, and she'll end by stripping you of your very last copper. I daresay you think I'm not speaking the truth, but I swear that I am! I have seen it all with my eyes and heard it with my ears; and I have too much respect for you, Mademoiselle, to tell you the worst things, such as how she went on when you were ill and she couldn't go rummaging in your chest of drawers.'