“Oh! it was Celeste who sent you, monsieur!  No, La Couteau hasn’t come yet.  I’m quite astonished at it; I expect her every moment.  Will you kindly step inside, monsieur, and sit down?”

He refused the only chair which blocked up the narrow passage where scarcely three customers could have stood in a row.  Behind a glass partition one perceived the dim back shop, which served as kitchen and dining-room and bedchamber, and which received only a little air from a damp inner yard which suggested a sewer shaft.

“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.  And as my husband comes home only in the evening, and then sits down in his armchair to smoke his pipe, he isn’t so much inconvenienced.  I do all I can for him, and he is reasonable enough not to ask me to do more.  But with a child I fear that it will be impossible to get on here.”

The recollection of her first boy, her little Pierre, returned to her, and her eyes filled with tears.  “Ah! monsieur, that was ten years ago, and I can still see La Couteau bringing him back to me, just as she’ll be bringing the other by and by.  I was told so many tales; there was such good air at Rougemont, and the children led such healthy lives, and my boy had such rosy cheeks, that I ended by leaving him there till he was five years old, regretting that I had no room for him here.  And no, you can’t have an idea of all the presents that the nurse wheedled out of me, of all the money that I paid!  It was ruination!  And then, all at once, I had just time to send for the boy, and he was brought back to me as thin and pale and weak, as if he had never tasted good bread in his life.  Two months later he died in my arms.  His father fell ill over it, and if we hadn’t been attached to one another, I think we should both have gone and drowned ourselves.”

Scarce wiping her eyes she feverishly returned to the threshold, and again cast a passionate expectant glance towards the avenue.  And when she came back, having seen nothing, she resumed:  “So you will understand our emotion when, two years ago, though I was thirty-seven, I again had a little boy.  We were wild with delight, like a young married couple.  But what a lot of trouble and worry!  We had to put the little fellow out to nurse as we let the other one, since we could not possibly keep him here.  And even after swearing that he should not go to Rougemont we ended by saying that we at least knew the place, and that he would not be worse off there than elsewhere.  Only we sent him to La Vimeux, for we wouldn’t hear any more of La Loiseau since she sent Pierre back in such a fearful state.  And this time, as the little fellow is now two years old, I was determined to have him home again, though I don’t even know where I shall put him.  I’ve been waiting for an hour now, and I can’t help trembling, for I always fear some catastrophe.”