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"I'm quite aware of that," replied Madame Lecoeur, between a couple of groans. "But what can I do? I must use everything up. There are some folks who insist upon having butter cheap, and so cheap butter must be made for them. Oh! it's always quite good enough for those who buy it." La Sarriette reflected that she would hardly care to eat butter which had been worked by her aunt's arms.
In one letter she recognised the villainous hand of Mademoiselle Saget, denouncing the people who met in the little sanctum at Lebigre's. On a large piece of greasy paper she identified the heavy pot-hooks of Madame Lecoeur; and there was also a sheet of cream-laid note-paper, ornamented with a yellow pansy, and covered with the scrawls of La Sarriette and Monsieur Jules.
Presently La Sarriette began to laugh. "What a jolly time I would have with Jules if my uncle would give that money to me!" said she. Madame Lecoeur, however, seemed quite overwhelmed by this revelation, crushed beneath the weight of the gold which she could not banish from her sight. Covetous envy thrilled her.
"Yes, indeed, he looks just like a thief caught with his hand in somebody's till," added Madame Lecoeur. "I once saw a man guillotined who looked exactly like he does," asserted La Sarriette, showing her white teeth. They stepped forward, lengthened their necks, and tried to see into the cab.
Madame Lecoeur inquired what was done to the people who got arrested "for politics," but on this point Mademoiselle Saget could not enlighten her; she only knew that they were never seen again no, never. And this induced La Sarriette to suggest that perhaps they were thrown into the Seine, as Jules had said they ought to be.
Madame Taboureau, you know, said that she should have nothing more to do with the Quenus if they persisted in bringing themselves into discredit by keeping that Florent with them." "Well, now, I suppose, they will stick to the fortune," remarked Madame Lecoeur. "Oh, no, indeed, my dear. The other one has had his share already." "Really? How do you know that?"
Madame Lecoeur, however, was at work on her butter at one of the tables placed parallel with the Rue Berger, and here a pale light filtered through the vent-holes. The tables, which are continually sluiced with a flood of water from the taps, are as white as though they were quite new. With her back turned to the pump in the rear, Madame Lecoeur was kneading her butter in a kind of oak box.
I am too proud, as you know, to accept any assistance from him; still it would have pleased me to have had it offered." "Ah, by the way, there he is, your brother-in-law!" suddenly exclaimed Mademoiselle Saget, lowering her voice. The two women turned and gazed at a man who was crossing the road to enter the covered way close by. "I'm in a hurry," murmured Madame Lecoeur.
Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil to buy his practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his respect for law, to fight a duel.
Then, when Madame Lecoeur also had gone off, La Sarriette remarked to Mademoiselle Saget: "It is foolish of my aunt to worry herself so much about all these affairs. It's that which makes her so thin. Ah! she'd have willingly taken Gavard for a husband if she could only have got him. Yet she used to beat me if ever a young man looked my way." Mademoiselle Saget smiled once more.
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