Hébert considered.
"You see your cousin sometimes, the widow Leboeuf, who has the shop in the rue des Lanternes?"
"I see her often enough, twice—three times a week at present."
"Could you get something out of her?"
"Not if she knew I wanted to. Close as a miser's fist, that's what Rosalie is, if she thinks she can spite you; but just now we are very good friends—and, well, I dare say it might be done. Depends what it is you want to know."
Hébert looked at her keenly.
"Perhaps you can tell me," he said, watching her face. "That girl who lodges there, who is she? What is her name—her real name?"
In a flash Thérèse was crimson to the hair, and he had her by the wrist, swinging her round to face him.
"Oho!" she cried, laughing till the new ear-rings tinkled, "so that's it—that's the game? Well, if you can give that stuck-up aristocrat the setting-down I 've promised her ever since I first saw her, I 'm with you."
Hébert pounced on one word, like a cat.