Madame Dubois, in the character of mistress of the house, did the honours admirably, and my lame friend, in spite of her pride, was very polite to her.  I did not speak a dozen words during the meal, and paid no sort of attention to the detestable creature; but I was anxious to know what she could want me to do for her.  As soon as Madame Dubois had left the room she told me straight out that she had come to ask me to let her have a couple of rooms in my house for three weeks or a month at the most.

I was astonished at such a piece of impudence, and told her she asked more than I was at liberty to give.

“You can’t refuse me, as everybody knows I have come on purpose to ask you.”

“Then everybody must know that I have refused you.  I want to be alone—­absolutely alone, without any kind of restriction on my liberty.  The least suspicion of company would bore me.”

“I shall not bore you in any way, and you will be at perfect liberty to ignore my presence.  I shall not be offended if you don’t enquire after me, and I shall not ask after you—­even if you are ill.  I shall have my meals served to me by my own servant, and I shall take care not to walk in the garden unless I am perfectly certain you are not there.  You must allow that if you have any claims to politeness you cannot refuse me.”

“If you were acquainted with the most ordinary rules of politeness, madam, you would not persist in a request to which I have formally declined to accede.”

She did not answer, but my words had evidently produced no effect.  I was choking with rage.  I strode up and down the room, and felt inclined to send her away by force as a madwoman.  However, I reflected that she had relations in a good position whom I might offend if I treated her roughly, and that I might make an enemy capable of exacting a terrible revenge; and, finally, that Madame might disapprove of my using violence to this hideous harpy....

“Well, madam,” said I, “you shall have the apartment you have solicited with so much importunity, and an hour after you come in I shall be on my way back to Soleure.”

“I accept the apartment, and I shall occupy it the day after to-morrow.  As for your threat of returning to Soleure, it is an idle one, as you would thereby make yourself the laughing-stock of the whole town.”

With this final impertinence she rose and went away, without taking any further notice of me.  I let her go without moving from my seat.  I was stupefied.  I repented of having given in; such impudence was unparalleled.  I called myself a fool, and vowed I deserved to be publicly hooted.  I ought to have taken the whole thing as a jest; to have contrived to get her out of the house on some pretext, and then to have sent her about her business as a madwoman, calling all my servants as witnesses.

My dear Dubois came in, and I told my tale.  She was thunderstruck.

“I can hardly credit her requesting, or your granting, such a thing,” said she, “unless you have some motives of your own.”