'Put it down on the ground and go away, and I will come and pick it up.'
She did as he told her. Then he cautiously stepped forward, casting suspicious glances around him. As soon as he had picked up the forty sous and the loaf he ran off as fast as his bare feet could carry him.
'The wild beast!' cried Chanteau. 'He will come and murder us all one of these nights. It's just like that little gaol-bird's daughter there. I would swear it was she who stole my silk handkerchief the other day.'
He was speaking of the Tourmal girl, whose grandfather had lately joined her father in gaol. She was now the only one who was left on the bench with the little Prouane, who was stupefied with drink. She got up, without any sign that she had heard the charge of theft brought against her, and she began to whine: 'Have pity upon us, kind young lady! There is nobody but mother and me at home now. The gendarmes come and beat us every night. My body is all one big bruise, and mother is dying. Oh! kind young lady, do give us some money and some good meat-soup and some wine——'
Chanteau, quite exasperated by the girl's string of lies, moved restlessly in his chair, but Pauline would have given the chemise off her back.
'There! there! That will do,' she muttered. 'You would get more if you talked less. Stay where you are, and I will make up a basket for you.'
When she came back, bringing with her an old fish-hamper, in which she had put a loaf, two litre-bottles of wine, and some meat, she found another of her pensioners on the terrace, the Gonin girl, who had brought her child with her, a girl now some twenty months old. The mother, who was sixteen years of age, was so fragile and slight of figure that she seemed more like the child's elder sister. She was scarcely able to carry the infant, but she nevertheless brought it to the house, as she knew that Mademoiselle Pauline was very fond of children and could refuse them nothing.
'Good gracious! How heavy she is!' cried Pauline, as she took the child in her arms. 'And to think that she is not six months older than our Paul!'
Despite herself, her eyes turned sadly towards the little boy, who was still lying asleep upon the rug. However, the young mother began to complain:
'If you only knew how much she eats, Mademoiselle Pauline! And I've no bed-linen, and nothing to dress her with. And then, since father is dead, mother and the other one are always ill-using me. They treat me like the lowest of the low, and say that if I have a baby I ought to provide what it costs to keep it.'