Again madame looked up.  ’Monsieur was fond of his little pleasantry!  This waiter was a good boy, but slow.  They did not keep a sufficiency of servants at the Hotel Railleux.  But doubtless monsieur had noticed that?’

The boy met her inquisitive glance with disarming frankness, but his words when he answered gave little information.

‘No.  He had not as yet had time to notice anything.’

‘But of course!  Monsieur was a new arrival?  He had come—­when was it—?’ Madame appeared to search her memory.

‘Yesterday.’

’But of course.  Yesterday!  And what a day it had been!  What weather for a long journey!  It had been a long journey, had it not?’

The boy looked vague.  ‘Oh, it had been of a sufficient length!’

Madame toyed with the remnants of her stew.  ’It had, perhaps, been a journey from England?  Monsieur was not French, although he had so charming a fluency in the language?’ Her eyes, her whole provincial, inquisitive face begged for information, but the boy was firm.

‘We are each of the country God has given us!’ he informed her.  Then he added with convincing certainty that madame was without doubt Parisienne.

Madame bridled at the soothing little falsehood.

‘Alas! nothing so interesting.  She was of the provinces.’

‘Provincial!  Impossible!’

At once the ice was broken; at once they were on the footing of friends, and madame’s soul poured forth its secret vanities.

’Monsieur was too kind.  No, she was provincial—­though, of a truth, Paris was so well known to her that she might almost claim to be Parisienne.’

The boy’s interest was undiminished.  ’Might he venture to ask if it was pleasure alone that had brought madame to the capital—­or had business—?’ He left the sentence discreetly unfinished.

Madame pushed her empty plate away and took a toothpick from the table.

‘How observant was monsieur!’ She eyed the bright young face with growing approval.  ’Yes, business, alas, was the pivot of her visit!  This terrible business—­exacting so much, giving so little in return!’ She heaved a weighty sigh, then her fat face melted into smiles.  ’But after all, what would you?’ She shrugged her ample shoulders, and the toothpick came into full play.

‘What would you, indeed?’ The boy began to feel a little disconcerted under her glance of slow approval, and a swift sense of relief passed through him as the door opened and the waiter reappeared, carrying the two eggs.

‘What would you, indeed?  One must live!’ Madame, disregarding the waiter, continued to study the boyish face—­the curious dark-gray eyes, in which the morning sun was discovering little flecks of gold.  ’And every year conditions were becoming harder, as monsieur doubtless knew.’

Monsieur nodded his head sagely, and began to eat his eggs with keen zest.