“Poor fellow!” muttered Mathieu, who had turned icy cold on seeing Seraphine’s bright mocking face and red hair at the carriage window.

Then he was going to his office when Beauchene beckoned to him from one of the windows of the house to come in with the doctor.  The pair of them found Constance and Maurice in the little drawing-room, whither the father had repaired to finish his coffee and smoke a cigar.  Boutan immediately attended to the child, who was much better with respect to his legs, but who still suffered from stomachic disturbance, the slightest departure from the prescribed diet leading to troublesome complications.

Constance, though she did not confess it, had become really anxious about the boy, and questioned the doctor, and listened to him with all eagerness.  While she was thus engaged Beauchene drew Mathieu on one side.

“I say,” he began, laughing, “why did you not tell me that everything was finished over yonder?  I met the pretty blonde in the street yesterday.”

Mathieu quietly replied that he had waited to be questioned in order to render an account of his mission, for he had not cared to be the first to raise such a painful subject.  The money handed to him for expenses had proved sufficient, and whenever the other desired it, he could produce receipts for his various disbursements.  He was already entering into particulars when Beauchene jovially interrupted him.

“You know what happened here?  She had the audacity to come and ask for work, not of me of course, but of the foreman of the women’s work-room.  Fortunately I had foreseen this and had given strict orders; so the foreman told her that considerations of order and discipline prevented him from taking her back.  Her sister Euphrasie, who is to be married next week, is still working here.  Just fancy them having another set-to!  Besides, her place is not here.”

Then he went to take a little glass of cognac which stood on the mantelpiece.

Mathieu had learnt only the day before that Norine, on leaving Madame Bourdieu’s, had sought a temporary refuge with a female friend, not caring to resume a life of quarrelling at her parents’ home.  Besides her attempt to regain admittance at Beauchene’s, she had applied at two other establishments; but, as a matter of fact, she did not evince any particular ardor in seeking to obtain work.  Four months’ idleness and coddling had altogether disgusted her with a factory hand’s life, and the inevitable was bound to happen.  Indeed Beauchene, as he came back sipping his cognac, resumed:  “Yes, I met her in the street.  She was quite smartly dressed, and leaning on the arm of a big, bearded young fellow, who did nothing but make eyes at her.  It was certain to come to that, you know.  I always thought so.”

Then he was stepping towards his wife and the doctor, when he remembered something else, came back, and asked Mathieu in a yet lower tone, “What was it you were telling me about the child?” And as soon as Mathieu had related that he had taken the infant to the Foundling Hospital so as to be certain that it was deposited there, he warmly pressed his hand.  “That’s perfect.  Thank you, my dear fellow; I shall be at peace now.”