Mme. Guinon asked for plenty of water. Julie shrugged her shoulders indifferently; she didn't care so long as there was drink, while the Flirt, in her cracked voice, breathed in the loafer's ear: "How about a sip of brandy to put with it?"
The appetiser loosened tongues: they began to cackle. From a drawer Josephine got out a pack of cards, which the Flirt promptly seized, while Julie, leaning familiarly on her shoulder, counselled her:
"Cut with the left and watch what you are doing; we shall see if there's any luck for us in the pack."
Josephine had now been back three days from her painful journey and had not seen Loupart. The latter, after having abandoned the motor in some waste ground among the fortifications, had vanished with the Beard, only bidding his mistress go home as if nothing had happened and wait for news of him.
The Simplon Express affair had made a great stir in the fashionable world, and had produced considerable uneasiness among the criminal class.
To be sure no name had been mentioned, and apparently the police were not following any definite clue. Still, in the Chapelle quarter, and especially in the den of the "Goutte d'Or" and the Rue de Chartres, it was noticed that the absence of the chief members of the Band of Cyphers coincided with the date of the tragedy.
At first there had been some slight stand-offishness shown to Josephine on her return. She was greeted with doubtful allusions, equivocal compliments, with a touch of coldness, and folks were also amazed at not seeing Loupart reappear with her.
Josephine told herself that she must at all costs disabuse her neighbours of this bad impression, and that is why she had decided to give a luncheon party to her most intimate friends. These might also be her most formidable opponents, for such damsels as the Flirt and Julie, even big Ernestine, could not fail to be jealous of the mistress of a distinguished leader; besides, she was the prettiest woman in the quarter.
Joining the conversation from time to time, Josephine smiled and regained confidence. Her man[oe]uvre bade fair to be crowned with success.