“Come home here—he!—is that what she means?” cried she. “Never. Have that man in my house? Never, never.”
“But what has mademoiselle received?” exclaimed Flore, appearing just then with a boiled egg. “Is it bad news?”
“It is news that I will not put up with—will not tolerate,” cried Miss Lavinia. And, in the moment’s dismay, she told the woman what it was.
“Tiens!” commented Flore, taking a common-sense view of matters: “they must be coming just to show themselves to mademoiselle on their marriage. Likely enough they will not stay more than a night or two, while looking out for an apartment.”
Lavinia did not believe it; but the very suggestion somewhat soothed her. To receive that man even for a night or two, as Flore put it, would be to her most repugnant, cruel pain, and she resolved not to do it. Breakfast over, she carried the letter and her trouble to the Rue Pomme Cuite.
“But I am afraid, Lavinia, you cannot refuse to receive them,” spoke Madame Carimon, after considering the problem.
“Not refuse to receive them!” echoed Lavinia. “Why do you say that?”
“Well,” replied Mary Carimon uneasily, for she disliked to add to trouble, “you see the house is as much Ann’s as yours. It was taken in your joint names. Ann has the right to return to it; and also, I suppose”—more dubiously—“to introduce her husband into it.”
“Is that French law?”