At sight of them, the solicitor’s clerk roared with laughter.
"I knew that I’d make you leave your work," he cried.
"Oh! it was a sell!" cried the shop-girls, with a laugh, while Robineau gazed sadly at the ruins of his preserve dish and murmured:
"Yes, it’s a very pretty scheme! But I won’t entrust any more of my dishes to this fellow."
The girls laughed uproariously; the young clerk was already talking with Mademoiselle Thénaïs, and Robineau was about to approach Fifine, when there was a cry of "Here’s madame!" whereupon the young milliners vanished like a flock of swallows, and the young men were once more alone in the passage.
"Well! now they have gone back again!" said Robineau.
"I told Thénaïs what I wanted to tell her," replied the other; and he left the house, enchanted with his ruse, while Robineau, who was minus a plate and preserve dish, and had not even spoken to Fifine, went upstairs to his room, consigning clerks and milliners to the devil. He arranged once more all the component parts of his costume, and had almost determined to go out to buy some silk stockings, when he heard two little taps at his door, and Mademoiselle Fifine appeared at last.
Fifine was a buxom, jovial wench of twenty-four, whose coloring was a little high, whose fair hair was of rather a doubtful shade, whose eyes were a little too prominent, and whose figure was a little too short; but there was a touch of decision in her manner which indicated a young woman of character, whom one might have taken for a roisterer, had she worn trousers.
"Well! what’s in the wind, my friend? What’s all this business of smashing dishes in order to see us? Dieu! what extravagance indeed! The girls called that very gallant!"
As she spoke, Fifine threw herself on a couch opposite the bed, and continued to eat cherries, which she carried in a handkerchief.