“I didn’t know, lieutenant.”
“But look you, Bertrand, it was your fault that I made her acquaintance.”
“The poodle’s rather, lieutenant.”
“Léonie lived in the same house with me, and I didn’t know her.”
“Parbleu, lieutenant, as if a body knew all his neighbors in Paris! except concierges and cooks, whose business it is.”
“At all events, you found the dog, and I bade you ask the concierge if anyone in the house had lost it.”
“And he told me that there was a young lady on the third floor, who had lain awake all night for grief at losing her dog, and that her maid, after searching from garret to cellar, had gone out to have placards printed offering thirty francs reward to whoever brought the little beast back. I confess that I didn’t have any idea that the little poodle, which did nothing but bite and growl, was worth more than four months’ pay for a private soldier; but I went up to the third floor in a hurry, to have the order for the placards countermanded by giving the little beast back to its mistress. To celebrate his return, he began by scratching a handsome blue satin armchair and putting his paws in madame’s cup of chocolate; but that didn’t prevent her calling him her little jewel, and expressing the greatest gratitude to me. Still, lieutenant, I don’t see anything in all that to force you to fall in love with Madame Léonie Saint-Edmond.”
“You haven’t told everything, Bertrand: you forget that, when you came down from the third floor, you drew a very alluring picture of that lady; you told me that she had a pair of eyes—and a voice—and a certain shape!”
“Bless me, lieutenant, I should say that all women have eyes and a shape and a voice!”
“Yes, to be sure; but still I was curious to know this young neighbor of ours, who showed such keen sensibility.”