She gave her eyes a final dab with my handkerchief which she restored to me with an air of scornful resentment.
"If you do, you will be infamous, and I will never speak to you again as long as I live."
I descended from my Rhadamanthine seat and reflected that the betrayal of Blanquette's confidence would not be a gallant action. I maintained my dignity, however.
"Then I must hear nothing more about you drowning yourself."
"We will not talk of it any longer," said Blanquette, frigidly. "I am going to cook the dinner."
As the prim salon provided little interest for an idle youth, I followed her into the slip of a kitchen, where I lounged in great contentment and discomfort. Blanquette relapsed into her fatalistic attitude towards life and seemed to dismiss the disastrous subject from her mind. While she prepared the simple meal she entertained me with an account of the farm near Chartres. There were so many cows, so many ducks and hens and so many pigs. She rose at five every morning and milked the cows. Oh, she had milked cows as a child and had not forgotten the art. It was difficult for those who did not know. Tiens! She demonstrated with finger and thumb and a lettuce how it was done.
"I shall not forget it," said I.
"It is good to know things," she remarked seriously.
"One never can tell," said I, "when a cow will come to you weeping to be milked: especially in the Rue des Saladiers."
"That is true," replied Blanquette. "The oddest things happen sometimes."