“I am not rich; everything is very simple in my house, but cleanliness is my luxury, and that is worth quite as much as any other.”

As she was gifted with sound, obstinate, practical common sense, she led her husband in everything.  Every evening during dinner, and afterwards when they were in their room, they talked over the business of the office for a long time, and although she was twenty years younger than he was, he confided everything to her as if she took the lead, and followed her advice in every matter.

She had never been pretty, and now she had grown ugly; in addition to that, she was short and thin, while her careless and tasteless way of dressing herself concealed her few small feminine attractions, which might have been brought out if she had possessed any taste in dress.  Her skirts were always awry, and she frequently scratched herself, no matter on what part of her person, totally indifferent as to who might see her, and so persistently, that anyone who saw her might think that she was suffering from something like the itch.  The only adornments that she allowed herself were silk ribbons, which she had in great profusion, and of various colors mixed together, in the pretentious caps which she wore at home.

As soon as she saw her husband she rose and said, as she kissed his whiskers: 

“Did you remember Potin, my dear?”

He fell into a chair, in consternation, for that was the fourth time on which he had forgotten a commission that he had promised to do for her.

“It is a fatality,” he said; “it is no good for me to think of it all day long, for I am sure to forget it in the evening.”

But as he seemed really so very sorry, she merely said, quietly: 

“You will think of it to-morrow, I dare say.  Anything new at the office?”

“Yes, a great piece of news; another tinsmith has been appointed second chief clerk.”  She became very serious, and said: 

“So he succeeds Ramon; this was the very post that I wanted you to have.  And what about Ramon?”

“He retires on his pension.”

She became furious, her cap slid down on her shoulder, and she continued: 

“There is nothing more to be done in that shop now.  And what is the name of the new commissioner?”

“Bonassot.”

She took up the Naval Year Book, which she always kept close at hand, and looked him up.

“’Bonassot-Toulon.  Born in 1851.  Student Commissioner in 1871.  Sub-Commissioner in 1875.’  Has he been to sea?” she continued.  At that question Caravan’s looks cleared up, and he laughed until his sides shook.

“As much as Balin—­as much as Baffin, his chief.”  And he added an old office joke, and laughed more than ever: 

“It would not even do to send them by water to inspect the Point-du-Jour, for they would be sick on the penny steamboats on the Seine.”

But she remained as serious as if she had not heard him, and then she said in a low voice, as she scratched her chin: