Luminot, who was sitting between the two ladies and was the only person who had heard this little aside, was busily stuffing himself with truffles, and contented himself with mumbling:
“It’s perfectly scandalous.—They’re from Périgord! what a perfume!”
“Hush! hush!” said Thélénie; “we will return to this subject this evening. My husband has something else to tell me.”
Chamoureau was in fact waiting until his wife should be ready to listen to him.
“Now, my dear love, as the dog is out of the way, we will go on to the case of the small boy.—You must know, ladies and gentlemen, that there is a small boy, a little vagabond, a very bad boy, so it seems, who had the audacity to throw stones at my wife.”
“I’ll bet that it was the lost child!” said Doctor Antoine.
“Just so, doctor; it was the lost child. But I did not know it; madame had instructed me to find out whom the little rascal belonged to—he is about eight years old—in order to warn his parents to look after him a little better. I succeeded at last in finding out whom the rascal belonged to—that is to say, whom he lives with,—for nobody knows whom he belongs to, and that is why he is called the lost child.—It’s rather an interesting story; the nurse told me everything—for I have seen the nurse. I will tell it to you; it would be a good subject for a melodrama.”
As this promised to be more interesting than the age of trees, everybody listened attentively to Chamoureau; even Thélénie herself was secretly impatient to hear what he had to say.
XX
THE NURSE.—THE QUARREL
“First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you must know that this nurse does not belong to this part of the country; she used to live with her husband at Morfontaine, a charming village near Ermenonville.”