The Countess laughed merrily. "What a funny child you are! And, who are 'we'—you and your parents?"
"Oh no," said Juliette; "my parents are in Heaven, madame; but I am married."
"Your husband must be in heaven, too!" said the Countess, who was a charming woman.
"Ah," demurred Juliette, "but although I have a warm heart, I have also a healthy appetite, and he is not rich; he is a painter."
"I must go to see his pictures some day," replied the comtesse de Grand Ecusson. "Give me the address—and believe that I am extremely grateful to you!"
It need not be said that Juliette skipped home on air after this interview. The hint of such patronage opened the gates of paradise to her, and the prospect was equally dazzling to Julien. For fully a week they talked of nothing but a visit from the comtesse de Grand Ecusson, having no suspicion that fine ladies often forgot their pretty promises as quickly as they made them.
And the week, and a fortnight, and a month passed, and at last the expectation faded; they ceased to indulge their fancies of a carriage- and-pair dashing into the street with a Lady Bountiful. And what was much more serious, madame Cochard ceased to indulge their follies. The truth was that she had never pardoned the girl for refusing to accept the proffered reward; the delicacy that prompted the refusal was beyond her comprehension, and now that the pair were in arrears with their rent again, she put no bridle on her tongue. "It appears to me that it would have been more honourable to accept money for a poodle than to owe money to a landlord," she grunted. "It must be perfectly understood that if the sum is not forthcoming on the first of January, you will have to get out. I have received my instructions, and I shall obey them. On the first day of January, my children, you pay, or you go! Le bon Dieu alone knows what will become of you, but that is no affair of mine. I expect you will die like the babes in the wood, for you are no more fit to make a living than a cow is fit to fly."
"Dear madame Cochard," they answered, peacefully, "why distress yourself about us? The first of January is more than a week distant; in a week we may sell a picture, or some fairy tales—in a week many things may happen!" And they sunned themselves on the boulevard the same afternoon with as much serenity as if they had been millionaires.
Nevertheless, they did not sell a picture or some fairy tales in the week that followed—and the first of January dawned with relentless punctuality, as we all remember.
In the early morning, when madame Cochard made her ascent to the attic —her arms folded inexorably, the glare of a creditor in her eye—she found that Juliette had already been out. (If you can believe me, she had been out to waste her last two francs on an absurd tie for Julien!)