“We are here!”

Half hidden by a spindle tree, they were sitting on the grass in the middle of the lawn.

“What are you about?”

“We have put up at an inn,” answered Lucien.  “We are resting in our room.”

Greatly diverted, the women watched them for a time.  Jeanne seemed quite contented with the game.  She was cutting the grass around her, doubtless with the intention of preparing breakfast.  A piece of wood, picked up among the shrubs, represented a trunk.  And now they were talking.  Jeanne, with great conviction in her tone, was declaring that they were in Switzerland, and that they would set out to see the glaciers, which rather astonished Lucien.

“Ha, here he is!” suddenly exclaimed Pauline.

Madame Deberle turned, and caught sight of Malignon descending the steps.  He had scarcely time to make his bow and sit down before she attacked him.

“Oh,” she said, “it is nice of you to go about everywhere saying that I have nothing but rubbishy ornaments about me!”

“You mean this little saloon of yours?  Oh yes,” said he, quite at his ease.  “You haven’t anything worth looking at here!”

“What! not my china figure?” she asked, quite hurt.

“No, no, everything is quite bourgeois.  It is necessary for a person to have some taste.  You wouldn’t allow me to select the things—­”

“Your taste, forsooth! just talk about your taste!” she retorted, flushing crimson and feeling quite angry.  “You have been seen with a lady—­”

“What lady?” he asked, surprised by the violence of the attack.

“A fine choice, indeed!  I compliment you on it.  A girl whom the whole of Paris knows—­”

She suddenly paused, remembering Pauline’s presence.

“Pauline,” she said, “go into the garden for a minute.”

“Oh no,” retorted the girl indignantly.  “It’s so tiresome; I’m always being sent out of the way.”

“Go into the garden,” repeated Juliette, with increased severity in her tone.

The girl stalked off with a sullen look, but stopped all at once, to exclaim:  “Well, then, be quick over your talk!”

As soon as she was gone, Madame Deberle returned to the charge.  “How can you, a gentleman, show yourself in public with that actress Florence?  She is at least forty.  She is ugly enough to frighten one, and all the gentlemen in the stalls thee and thou her on first nights.”

“Have you finished?” called out Pauline, who was strolling sulkily under the trees.  “I’m not amusing myself here, you know.”

Malignon, however, defended himself.  He had no knowledge of this girl Florence; he had never in his life spoken a word to her.  They had possibly seen him with a lady:  he was sometimes in the company of the wife of a friend of his.  Besides, who had seen him?  He wanted proofs, witnesses.

“Pauline,” hastily asked Madame Deberle, raising her voice, “did you not meet him with Florence?”