“Her lover is a workman, I suppose, an apprentice?”
“No indeed! he’s a dandy, a gentleman, in fact; but he seems to think that she’s well enough off as she is, or else he can’t do any better; and I give you my word that the girl eats potatoes oftener than anything else. But as long as she can see her Ernest and play with her cat, she’s as happy as a queen.”
Since I had known all this, I had regarded the girl with a friendly interest simply. Some time after, that interest became still greater. I overheard involuntarily a conversation between Mademoiselle Marguerite and an old count who lived on the same landing with me. Monsieur le comte was an old rake; there was nothing extraordinary in that; we are all rakes more or less. He, too, used to ogle our young neighbor, and one day, when I was about to go out, my door happened to be ajar, and the following dialogue reached my ears:
“Listen, listen, my pretty little minx; I have a couple of words to say to you.”
“What are they, monsieur?”
“In the first place, that you are a sweetheart.”
“Oh! if that’s all, it is——”
“Listen, my dear love, I wish to make you happy.”
“Happy? Why, I am very happy, monsieur.”
“A girl can’t be happy when she lives under the eaves, in a wretched, poorly-furnished chamber. I will give you a pretty apartment and money to buy whatever you want.”