"Because I am leaving this house."
"Why, pray?"
"Because I'm afraid I shall be found here. There's your friend, that stout man, who presumed to call me Seringat last night before a whole roomful! I am very angry, monsieur! It was a mean trick that you played on me, to take me to a house where I might meet a man who knew me at Pontoise! I don't propose to lend you money so that you can treat me in such a way as that!"
"Allow me to observe, my dear friend, that at this moment you are talking like a goose! And I will prove to you in a few words that you have no common sense. I borrow money of you—which I will return, by the way, when I inherit from my aunt, you may be sure."
"Very well; I don't care about that; I'm in no hurry."
"Now, my reason for having recourse to your purse of late is that I am rather short, that I need your help. You lend me money, not to oblige me, I know that perfectly well, but because you're afraid that I will divulge what you are so anxious to conceal."
"Yes, monsieur; that's the only reason—it's not from friendship at all."
"Thanks; I appreciate that token of affection! But if I brought you face to face with someone who had known you at Pontoise, that is to say, who might disclose—what concerns you, why, it would be all over; you wouldn't lend me any more money, because everything would be known!—So you see that it is altogether against my interest that anyone should recognize you. This Dubotté came to Mirotaine's—a most miraculous thing; for he had always refused to go there, because they give their guests cocoa for refreshments—he said so himself in my presence. So it was simply an unlucky chance that he came there last night. Moreover, I had no idea that Dubotté had ever known you at Pontoise; but luckily it was before your—your event; he knows nothing about that."
"My word! if he'd mentioned that, I should have done some crazy thing!"
"I don't know what you'd have done; but you see that I could not have anticipated that meeting. Come, my little Seringat, you're not angry with me any more, are you?"