“Shall you pay for the misere?” said Madame de Chargeboeuf.
As she spoke Pierrette struck her head against the door of the passage which some one had left open.
“Good! I’m glad of it,” cried Sylvie, as they heard the blow.
“She must be hurt,” said Desfondrilles.
“She deserves it,” replied Sylvie.
“It was a bad blow,” said Mademoiselle Habert.
Sylvie thought she might escape paying her misere if she went to see after Pierrette, but Madame de Chargeboeuf stopped her.
“Pay us first,” she said, laughing; “you will forget it when you come back.”
The remark, based on the old maid’s trickery and her bad faith in paying her debts at cards was approved by the others. Sylvie sat down and thought no more of Pierrette,—an indifference which surprised no one. When the game was over, about half past nine o’clock, she flung herself into an easy chair at the corner of the fireplace and did not even rise as her guests departed. The colonel was torturing her; she did not know what to think of him.
“Men are so false!” she cried, as she went to bed.