“No, monsieur.”
“It’s a bargain! You will stay with me. You have nothing to keep you in Paris?”
“Bless my soul, no, monsieur; I have nothing but my wife.”
“We start in a few days; but I warn you that I intend to travel like an artist, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a carriage; to defy the rain and the sun when that is my pleasure.”
“Monsieur is joking. I am not a dainty woman; I will do whatever you do.”
“One word more: do you know my name?”
“I have heard the concierge mention it once; I don’t remember it, but——”
“Don’t try to remember it. I mean to assume another under which I intend to travel. I shall call myself after this, Dalbreuse, and I do not wish to be called anything else.”
“That is enough, monsieur; you understand that I will call you whatever you please. So I have a profession at last. I have no further need to try to get waistcoats and breeches to make! The deuce take sewing! And then too I am very glad not to have to leave monsieur.”
Pettermann’s delight pleased me. I was very glad to have someone in my service who had not known me during my married life.