"Yes, I know," answered Marie Pascal. "Your table looks very pretty."
"You might make me a lace table cloth. We'll talk about it some other time, not this evening; besides, I can't be too extravagant."
The dressmaker took her leave a few moments later and made her way with care in the semi-obscurity down the three flights of stairs.
Marie Pascal was a young girl in the early twenties, fair-haired, blue-eyed and with a graceful figure. Modishly but neatly dressed, she had a reputation in the neighborhood as a model of discretion and virtue.
She worked ceaselessly and being clever with her fingers, she had succeeded in building up so good a trade in the rich and elegant Monceau quarter, that in the busy season she was obliged to hire one or two workwomen to help her.
As she was crossing the court to go to her own room, a voice called her from the porter's lodge.
"Marie Pascal, look here a moment."
A fat woman dressed in her best opened the door of her room which was lit by one flaring gas jet.
Marie Pascal, in spite of her natural kindliness, could scarcely repress a smile.
Madame Ceiron, the concièrge, or, as she was popularly called, "Mother Citron," certainly presented a fantastic appearance.