"How! Mon Dieu, madame, I ask your pardon; but it’s natural that when I warm your bed——"
"Warm my bed?"
"Didn’t you, monsieur, order me to warm your bed?"
"Yes, I admit it," said Robineau, "I thought that my wife would like it; but I didn’t tell you to go to bed in order to do it."
"Oh! monsieur, I’ll tell you how it is—there ain’t any warming pan in the château, and nobody’s thought to buy one; in fact, Monsieur Férulus said there wasn’t any use of it; he taught me to warm beds like the ancients; in fact, I’ve been warming his bed with my gravity, as he calls it, every day."
"How shocking!" cried Cornélie; "your great scholar is a scoundrel, monsieur; and I trust that he will leave my house to-morrow."
"I agree with you entirely, madame," said Robineau; "besides, he writes nothing but wretched stuff now."
"He is a villain!" said Monsieur de la Pincerie; "and if I were not almost in my shirt, I would go to him at once and pull his ears!"
"Meanwhile, I certainly shall not sleep in this bed," said Cornélie; "and as the one I have been sleeping in has been taken down, I shall pass the night with my sister."
"But, my dear wife, consider—" began Robineau.