'It can't be very good for one's health,' interposed Madame Offarel with some asperity, 'to go out nearly every night; and these big dinners, with their fine wines and highly-seasoned dishes, impoverish the blood terribly!'
'Don't be absurd,' said Emilie, interposing; 'we have had the honour of Monsieur Larcher's company to dinner, and you would be surprised to see what a modest meal he makes. And people can afford to go to bed a little late when they are free to sleep long in the morning. René tells us that it is so delightfully quiet in your house,' she added, addressing the writer.
'Yes, so it is. I happened to come across some rooms in an old house in the Rue de Varenne, and I find that at present I am the only tenant in the place. When the blinds are drawn I can fancy it is the middle of the night. I can hear nothing but the ringing of the bells in a convent close by and the roar of the city far, far away.'
'I have always heard it said that one hour's sleep before midnight is worth more than two afterwards,' broke in the old lady, exasperated by Claude's imperturbability. She was incensed against him without knowing exactly why—this feeling being inspired less by the influence he exercised upon René than by deep natural antipathy. She felt that she was being studied by this individual with the inquisitorial eyes, perfect manners, and unfathomable smiles. His presence produced in her a feeling of uneasiness that found vent in sharp words. She therefore added, 'Besides, Monsieur René cannot have such rest here. At what time will this Countess's soirée be over?'
'I don't know,' replied Claude, amused by the ill-concealed rancour of his adversary; 'the "Sigisbée" will be performed about half-past ten, and I suppose we shall sit down to supper about half-past twelve or one.'
'Monsieur René will be in bed about two o'clock, then,' rejoined Madame Offarel, with the visible satisfaction of an aggressive person bringing forward an irrefutable argument; 'and as Monsieur Fresneau goes out about seven, and Françoise begins to potter about at six——'
'Come, come, once in a way!' exclaimed Emilie with some impatience, cutting short the other's words. She feared the old lady's indiscreet tongue, and changed the topic by flattering her pet mania. 'You have not told us whether Cendrillon came back for good?'
Cendrillon was a grey cat presented by Madame Offarel to a young man named Jacques Passart, a teacher of drawing, between whom and the sous-chef de bureau a friendship had sprung up, born of their mutual taste for aquarelles. These were the two family vices—a love for painting in the husband, who daubed his canvases even in his office; and a love of cats in the wife, who had had as many as five such boarders in her flat—a ground floor like that of the Fresneaus, also with its bit of garden. Jacques Passart, who nursed an unrequited affection for Rosalie, had so often gone into rhapsodies over the pretty ways of Cendrette or Cendrinette, as Madame Offarel called her, that he had been presented with the animal. After a stay of three months in the room occupied by Passart on a fifth floor in the Rue du Cherche-Midi, Cendrillon had become a mother. Out of her three kittens two had been killed, and, doubtlessly thinking the third in danger, she had run away with it. Passart had been afraid to speak of his loss, but two days later Madame Offarel heard a scratching at the garden door.
'That's strange,' she said, verifying the number of her cats—one of which was lying at full length on the counterpane of her bed, another on the only sofa, and a third on the marble chimney-piece. 'They are all here, and yet I hear a scratching.' She opened the door, and Cendrillon walked in, purring, arching her back, and rubbing her head against her old mistress with a thousand pretty little ways that charmed the good lady. The next morning Cendrillon had once more vanished. This visit, rendered more mysterious by the avowal Passart had been obliged to make of his negligence, had on the previous day been the sole theme of Madame Offarel's conversation, and the fact that she had not even alluded to the circumstance that evening revealed more than her epigrams the importance attached by Rosalie's mother to René's entry into society.
'Ah! Cendrillon,' she replied, her ill-humour tinged with the enthusiasm evoked by the mention of the dear creature. 'I don't suppose Monsieur René remembers anything about it?' Upon a sign of reassurance from the young man that he had not forgotten the interesting event, she continued: 'Well, she came back this morning, carrying her little one in her mouth, and laid it at my feet like an offering, with such a look in her eyes! The day before she had come to see whether I still cared for her, and now she came to ask me to take her kitten too. It's better to bestow one's affections upon animals than upon human beings,' she added, by way of conclusion; 'they are much more faithful.'