“But, Flore—­”

“Oh, yes, ‘Flore’! find another Flore, if you can, at your time of life, fifty-one years old, and getting feeble,—­for the way your health is failing is frightful, I know that! and besides, you are none too amusing—­”

“But, Flore—­”

“Let me alone!”

She went out, slamming the door with a violence that echoed through the house, and seemed to shake it to its foundations.  Jean-Jacques softly opened the door and went, still more softly, into the kitchen where she was muttering to herself.

“But, Flore,” said the poor sheep, “this is the first time I have heard of this wish of yours; how do you know whether I will agree to it or not?”

“In the first place,” she said, “there ought to be a man in the house.  Everybody knows you have ten, fifteen, twenty thousand francs here; if they came to rob you we should both be murdered.  For my part, I don’t care to wake up some fine morning chopped in quarters, as happened to that poor servant-girl who was silly enough to defend her master.  Well! if the robbers knew there was a man in the house as brave as Caesar and who wasn’t born yesterday,—­for Max could swallow three burglars as quick as a flash,—­well, then I should sleep easy.  People may tell you a lot of stuff,—­that I love him, that I adore him,—­and some say this and some say that!  Do you know what you ought to say?  You ought to answer that you know it; that your father told you on his deathbed to take care of his poor Max.  That will stop people’s tongues; for every stone in Issoudun can tell you he paid Max’s schooling—­and so!  Here’s nine years that I have eaten your bread—­”

“Flore,—­Flore!”

“—­and many a one in this town has paid court to me, I can tell you!  Gold chains here, and watches there,—­what don’t they offer me?  ’My little Flore,’ they say, ’why won’t you leave that old fool of a Rouget,’—­for that’s what they call you.  ‘I leave him!’ I always answer, ’a poor innocent like that?  I think I see myself! what would become of him?  No, no, where the kid is tethered, let her browse—­’”

“Yes, Flore; I’ve none but you in this world, and you make me happy.  If it will give you pleasure, my dear, well, we will have Maxence Gilet here; he can eat with us—­”

“Heavens!  I should hope so!”

“There, there! don’t get angry—­”

“Enough for one is enough for two,” she answered laughing.  “I’ll tell you what you can do, my lamb, if you really mean to be kind; you must go and walk up and down near the Mayor’s office at four o’clock, and manage to meet Monsieur Gilet and invite him to dinner.  If he makes excuses, tell him it will give me pleasure; he is too polite to refuse.  And after dinner, at dessert, if he tells you about his misfortunes, and the hulks and so forth—­for you can easily get him to talk about all that—­then you can make him the offer to come and live here.  If he makes any objection, never mind, I shall know how to settle it.”