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In thus complaining her object perhaps was to extract from the haberdasher as large a present as possible. Madame Menoux was certainly disturbed by it all. Her boy woke up and began to wail loudly, and it became necessary to give him a little lukewarm milk. At last, when the accounts were settled, the nurse-agent, seeing that she would have ten francs for herself, grew calmer.
"However, I must really tell you, because I don't know how to lie; and besides, after all, it's my duty Well, the poor little darling has been ill, and he's not quite well again yet." Madame Menoux turned very pale and clasped her puny little hands: "Mon Dieu! he will die of it." "No, no, since I tell you that he's already a little better. And certainly he doesn't lack good care.
She is no longer young, but she has buried a good many in her time, and she'll bury more before she has finished! For instance, Madame Menoux you must surely remember Madame Menoux, the little haberdasher close by well, there was a woman now who never had any luck!
He on his side certainly placed no confidence in this big dark girl with a head like that of a horse, who, it seemed to him, knew far too much. Marianne joined in the conversation. "But why," asked she, "why does not this Madame Menoux, whom you speak about, keep her baby with her?"
After questioning Norine at length, he guessed that Alexandre must have learnt her address through La Couteau, though he could not say precisely how this had come about. At last, after a long month of discreet researches, conversations with Madame Menoux, Celeste, and La Couteau herself, he was able in some measure to explain things.
As for that little Madame Menoux, it's here to-day and gone to-morrow. She has her business, and I have mine. And you, too, have yours, and so much the better if you get as much out of it as you can." But La Couteau changed the conversation by asking the maid if she could not give her a drop of something to drink, for night travelling did upset her stomach so.
"As you see, monsieur, we have scarcely any room," continued Madame Menoux; "but then we pay only eight hundred francs rent, and where else could we find a shop at that price? And besides, I have been here for nearly twenty years, and have worked up a little regular custom in the neighborhood. Oh! I don't complain of the place myself, I'm not big, there is always sufficient room for me.
That would only be just; and besides, there were other little expenses, sugar, and eggs, so that in your place, to act like a good mother, I should put down five francs. Forty-five francs altogether, will that suit you?" In spite of her emotion Madame Menoux felt that she was being robbed, that the other was speculating on her distress.
That morning, as it happened, Celeste the maid received in the linen room, where she usually remained, a visit from her friend Madame Menoux, the little haberdasher of the neighborhood, in whose tiny shop she was so fond of gossiping.
Madame Menoux, however, was looking at her very anxiously. "And how is my little Pierre?" she asked. "Why, not so bad, not so bad. He is not, you know, one of the strongest; one can't say that he's a big child. Only he's so pretty and nice-looking with his rather pale face. And it's quite certain that if there are bigger babies than he is, there are smaller ones too."
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