“‘It is very mysterious, that’s so.’
“‘I should say that it was suspicious even.’
“‘Well! birds of a feather flock together, as the proverb says. The bear of the Tower must have found these ladies to his taste!’
“‘As for me,’ says Mame Droguet, ‘I have a very bad opinion of the persons in the Courtivaux house.’
“‘It isn’t Monsieur Courtivaux’s, since he has sold it.’
“‘That don’t make any difference. Besides, we don’t know whether these fine ladies have paid for the house; there’s so many people who buy and then don’t pay.’
“At that, you see, I couldn’t help putting in my word.
“‘So far as that goes,’ says I, ‘I’m very sure that Madame Dalmont has paid for the house. I had a letter from the notary telling me to give ’em the keys and everything.’”
“Thanks, Père Ledrux, thanks for defending us on that point; but pray understand that the remarks, the insults of those ladies affect us very little! When one knows that one has no reason for self-reproach, one should hold oneself above the sneers of calumny! But we congratulate ourselves now that we have not called on that woman, that we have not made a friend of her.”
“It’s just that thing that’s vexed her most, I tell you! And she only says all these nasty things about you from spite because you haven’t been to see her. But what I can’t understand is how there’s anybody who’ll allow himself to be taken in by all that tittle-tattle. It’s just because Mame Droguet invites ‘em to dinner. She says to Monsieur Luminot: ‘You must choose between the society at the Courtivaux house and mine, monsieur. My husband and I are determined not to receive people who go to see those ladies.’—She puts her husband forward, the poor dear man! but he doesn’t meddle in such things; so long as he can dance in the evening in front of a mirror, with himself for his vis-à-vis, he’s satisfied! But Monsieur Luminot—you see, he thinks a lot of Mame Droguet’s dinners.”