“Very good; evidently her grief isn’t dangerous as yet.”
“While she was breakfasting, your neighbor, Madame Saint-Edmond, came to ask me if I’d seen her poodle; she wanted also to speak to monsieur about a matter that she said was important. She came in, and the two of them waited a long while for you.”
“What! were they here together?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Gad! that must have been amusing!”
“Amusing, if you choose to call it so! I was afraid for a minute that it was going to be serious.”
“Oh! you see the dark side of everything.”
“I assure you, monsieur, that those ladies didn’t look at the bright side, either of ‘em. They went away at last. Mademoiselle Virginie went to see an Englishman, who is to buy a linen-draper’s shop for her.”
“Bertrand, you’re a slanderer.”
“I am simply repeating what she said, monsieur.”