“It’s a pretty little cross; but I shouldn’t think it was new.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Madame Dupont.”
And I hastily put the cross in my pocket, to hide it from the glances of that accursed concierge, who, finding that I no longer replied to her, talked on all alone, in order to keep the conversation alive.
“They say the girl was very pretty, and that she was crying! That’s a strange thing.”
“What girl are you talking about?”
“A little thing—a sort of—faith! I don’t know just what she was, for I didn’t see her. To be sure, she passed my lodge, but she went by so quick! brrr! like a bomb!”
“Who told you anything about her?”
“Madame Martin, Madame Bertin’s cook, who saw her when she went downstairs to get her milk.”
“Where did the girl come from?”
“Oh!—I—they—that is—I don’t know anything about it, monsieur.”