"'Do you think there's less danger when they are alone?'
"'Certainly, one can keep a closer watch on them then; but when there's two of 'em, why, they do nothing else besides going back and forth before one's eyes, and it's impossible to know who goes in and out—so one gets totally bewildered.'
"That, my dear fellow, is the conversation I had with the concierge of those damsels, who strike me as being decidedly a bad lot. You see that it's no use for us to go to their last lodgings to look for them."
"I see that the letter wasn't so far from the truth, when it said that they would be turned out if they did not pay."
"They succeeded in escaping unaided. I asked how much the upholsterer claimed: it was eight or nine hundred francs, I believe; but if I had turned in four hundred francs, do you imagine for a moment that they would have given it to their creditor? Ah! how little you know of that breed! They would have vanished with my money, that's all!"
"In other words, I am sure of it. 'Brought up in the harem, I know all its devious ways.' These girls pass their lives making poufs; then they make a trip to England, to try to make the conquest of some lord; and when they don't succeed in that, they are obliged to sell everything, even to their chemises, to pay for their return trip to Paris. I tell you that I know the whole business, step by step."
"It's a pity! I regret Amélia, for she was very pretty!"
"There are others! Paris swarms with pretty women. Henriette was very attractive, too; pink and white, Watteau style."
"I am terribly annoyed."