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It became quite natural, therefore, for Madame Dépine to stroll into her "Princess's" room, and they soon slid into dividing the cost of the fire. That was more than an economy, for neither could afford a fire alone. It was an easy transition to the discovery that coffee could be made more cheaply for two, and that the same candle would light two persons, provided they sat in the same room.
And the endurance on Madame Dépine's round face became more vindictive, and gentler grew the resignation on the angular visage of Madame Valière. "Tiens! Madame Dépine, one never sees you now." Madame la Propriétaire was blocking the threshold, preventing her exit. "I was almost thinking you had veritably died of Madame Valière's cough."
"Ah! here is my floor," panted Madame Valière at length, with an air of indicating it to a thorough stranger. "Will you not come into my room and eat a fig? They are very healthy between meals." Madame Dépine accepted the invitation, and entering her own corner of the corridor with a responsive air of foreign exploration, passed behind the door through whose keyhole she had so often peered.
With anxious solicitude Madame Valière would direct her attention to sunsets, to clouds, to the rising moon; but heaven had ceased to have attraction, except as a place from which five-francs fell, and as soon as the "Princess's" eye was off her, her own sought the ground again. But this imaginary need of cheering up Madame Dépine kept Madame Valière herself from collapsing.
"But I have lived so long in Russia, I forget people call this cold." "Ah! the Princess travelled far?" said Madame Dépine, eagerly. "Too far," replied Madame Valière, with a flash of Gallic wit. "But who has told you of the Princess?" "Madame la Propriétaire, naturally." "She talks too much she and her wig!" "If only she didn't imagine herself a powdered marquise in it!
Wherefore Madame Dépine was not so very sorry when, after a few weeks of this discomforting contrast, the hour drew near of the "Princess's" departure for the family wedding; especially as she was only losing her for two days.
"But the President has also" a fit of coughing interrupted Madame Valière "has also outriders." "But he is so bourgeois a mere man of the people," said Madame Dépine. "They are the most decent sort of folk. But do you not feel cold? I will light a fire." She bent towards the wood-box. "No, no; do not trouble. I shall be going in a moment. I have a large fire blazing in my room."
"And why should we trust you with one hundred francs?" asked Madame Dépine. "You might botch the work." "Or fly to Italy," added the "Princess." In the end it was agreed he should have fifty down and fifty on delivery. "Measure us, while we are here," said Madame Dépine. "I will bring you the fifty francs immediately." "Very well," he murmured. "Which of you?"
Decidedly either head would be a bad block for the other's wig to repose on. "It would be more sensible to acquire a wig together, and draw lots for it," said Madame Dépine. The "Princess's" eyes rekindled. "Yes, and then save up again to buy the loser a wig." "Parfaitement" said Madame Dépine. They had slid out of pretending that they had large sums immediately available.
"You do not trust my friend!" "Madame Valière has moved in the best society," added Madame Dépine. "But you cannot expect me to do two hundred francs of work and then be left planted with the wigs!" "But who said two hundred francs?" cried Madame Dépine. "It is only one wig that we demand to-day at least." He shrugged his shoulders. "A hundred francs, then."
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