Once in the linen-room, Valentine ordered all the doors to be carefully secured.  La Couteau was standing there with a sturdy young person of five-and-twenty, who carried a superb-looking infant in her arms.  She had dark hair, a low forehead, and a broad face, and was very respectably dressed.  And she made a little courtesy like a well-trained nurse, who has already served with gentlefolks and knows how to behave.  But Valentine’s embarrassment remained extreme; she looked at the nurse and at the babe like an ignorant woman who, though her elder children had been brought up in a room adjoining her own, had never troubled or concerned herself about anything.  In her despair, seeing that Santerre kept to himself, she again appealed to Mathieu, who once more excused himself.  And it was only then that La Couteau, after glancing askance at the gentleman who, somehow or other, always turned up whenever she had business to transact, ventured to intervene: 

“Will madame rely on me?  If madame will kindly remember, I once before ventured to offer her my services, and if she had accepted them she would have saved herself no end of worry.  That Marie Lebleu is impossible, and I certainly could have warned madame of it at the time when I came to fetch Marie’s child.  But since madame’s doctor had chosen her, it was not for me to speak.  Oh! she has good milk, that’s quite sure; only she also has a good tongue, which is always dry.  So if madame will now place confidence in me—­”

Then she rattled on interminably, expatiating on the respectability of her calling, and praising the value of the goods she offered.

“Well, madame, I tell you that you can take La Catiche with your eyes shut.  She’s exactly what you want, there’s no better in Paris.  Just look how she’s built, how sturdy and how healthy she is!  And her child, just look at it!  She’s married, she even has a little girl of four at the village with her husband.  She’s a respectable woman, which is more than can be said for a good many nurses.  In a word, madame, I know her and can answer for her.  If you are not pleased with her I myself will give you your money back.”

In her haste to get it all over Valentine made a great gesture of surrender.  She even consented to pay one hundred francs a month, since La Catiche was a married woman.  Moreover, La Couteau explained that she would not have to pay the office charges, which would mean a saving of forty-five francs, though, perhaps, madame would not forget all the trouble which she, La Couteau, had taken.  On the other hand, there would, of course, be the expense of taking La Catiche’s child back to the village, a matter of thirty francs.  Valentine liberally promised to double that sum; and all seemed to be settled, and she felt delivered, when she suddenly bethought herself of the other nurse, who had barricaded herself in her room.  How could they get her out in order to install La Catiche in her place?