"I cannot say whether any one accompanies her to the house or not, but I do know that no man ever crosses her threshold."
"She is really a paragon of virtue, then?"
"She certainly seems to be, and I am sure that everybody in the house will tell you the same thing that I do."
"Do you know what her resources are? What she lives on, in short?"
"I haven't the slightest idea, though it is not at all likely that she lives on her income, monsieur. Rich people don't get up at that hour, especially on a morning like this, when the cold cuts you like a knife, and the clock in the Luxembourg was striking half-past three when I heard the lady leave her room this morning."
"It is strange, passing strange! It seems to me I must be dreaming," muttered the gentleman. Then—
"Is that all you know?" he asked aloud.
"That is all, monsieur. But I can vouch for it that nobody in the house knows any more."
The man with the cigar remained silent and thoughtful for a few minutes, during which he sipped his second glass of absinthe abstractedly, then, throwing a foreign gold coin on the table, he said:
"Take out the amount of my bill, and keep one hundred sous for yourself. Your money was very easily earned, it strikes me."