Suddenly the door of the salon was thrown open; a stout woman of fifty or thereabouts, wearing a straw hat whose brim barely overpassed her forehead and upon which nodded a wreath of faded roses, entered the room with the air of a person in a towering rage, holding an umbrella in one hand, and in the other a reticule large enough to hold a ten pound loaf of sugar. At sight of her Monin started back, lost his wits, upset his snuff-box, and acted as if he proposed to hide himself under the table.
“Ah! so you’re here, are you, monsieur?” cried Madame Monin, for it was that lady in person who had entered the salon. “I find you gambling. I suspected as much. I wish you good-evening, neighbors. While it’s thundering and a frightful storm is raging, monsieur sits here gambling instead of coming home to comfort me; and yet he knows how afraid I am of thunder storms! Excuse me, neighbor, for venturing to scold him before you, but you must agree that his conduct is unpardonable.”
During this sermon, poor Monin, who had no idea what he was doing, staked a forty-sou piece instead of two sous, and stuffed his fingers into his snuff-box, in which there was nothing at all, stammering the while with a contrite air:
“How’s your health, Bichette?”
“My health! a lot you worry about it, on my word! To leave me alone during the storm! Catherine had to keep me company under the quilt.”
“It was the rain that——”
“As if a man should be afraid of the rain! for shame! You make me blush!”
Madame Destival did not like Madame Monin; but, being overjoyed by her arrival at that moment, she gave her a seat near the piano and overwhelmed her with attentions, to which Madame Monin replied by repeated curtsies, at the same time handing her husband the umbrella. He stepped forward to take it, and, forgetting that he was interested in the game, murmured so low that she could hardly hear him:
“Whenever you’re ready, Bichette.”
But Bichette, who was comfortably seated and was already beginning to criticise Madame de la Thomassinière, replied sharply: