“Won’t it bore you, monsieur?”
“No, of course not; don’t you know that I am interested in everything that concerns you?”
“Oh, monsieur! if you—but here goes: in the first place, I went home to my mother’s, because, after all, she is my mother, and, although she turned me out of doors, I still owe her respect.”
“That is true; you did very well. How did Madame Jérôme receive you?”
“Very badly, monsieur! oh! very badly! She didn’t so much as ask me where I’d passed the night. But she proposed to me again to marry Beauvisage, and said that then she’d forgive what she called my caravanes.[A] Has there been any caravanes between you and me, monsieur?”
[A] In French slang, “love adventures.”
“Certainly not; and then?”
“Oh! I refused; because, when it comes to marriage, I’m obstinate, too. Then she beat me again, and that time you wasn’t there to stop her.”
I could not restrain a smile at the artless way in which Nicette reminded me of the blow I had received in her behalf; but I was distressed by Madame Jérôme’s hard-heartedness: to think of turning her daughter out of doors, beating her, and abandoning her, utterly without resource, at the age when the simplest and often the only means of support are to be found in prostitution! Ah! there are mothers unworthy of the name!
“Well, Nicette?”