“Oh!” said Sophia; “who are they?”

“They will pay a hundred and thirty francs a month, in advance, for the middle bedroom.”

“You’ve shown it to them already?” said Sophia.  And her tone implied that somehow she was conscious of a right to overlook the affair of Madame Foucault.

“No,” said the other.  “I said to myself that first I would ask you for a counsel.”

“Then will they pay all that for a room they haven’t seen?”

“The fact is,” said Madame Foucault, sheepishly.  “The lady has seen the room before.  I know her a little.  It is a former tenant.  She lived here some weeks.”

“In that room?”

“Oh no!  She was poor enough then.”

“Where are they?”

“In the corridor.  She is very well, the lady.  Naturally one must live, she like all the world; but she is veritably well.  Quite respectable!  One would never say ...  Then there would be the meals.  We could demand one franc for the cafe au lait, two and a half francs for the lunch, and three francs for the dinner.  Without counting other things.  That would mean over five hundred francs a month, at least.  And what would they cost us?  Almost nothing!  By what appears, he is a plutocrat ...  I could thus quickly repay you.”

“Is it a married couple?”

“Ah!  You know, one cannot demand the marriage certificate.”  Madame Foucault indicated by a gesture that the Rue Breda was not the paradise of saints.

“When she came before, this lady, was it with the same man?” Sophia asked coldly.

“Ah, my faith, no!” exclaimed Madame Foucault, bridling.  “It was a bad sort, the other, a ...!  Ah, no.”

“Why do you ask my advice?” Sophia abruptly questioned, in a hard, inimical voice.  “Is it that it concerns me?”

Tears came at once into the eyes of Madame Foucault.  “Do not be unkind,” she implored.

“I’m not unkind,” said Sophia, in the same tone.

“Shall you leave me if I accept this offer?”

There was a pause.

“Yes,” said Sophia, bluntly.  She tried to be large-hearted, large-minded, and sympathetic; but there was no sign of these qualities in her speech.

“And if you take with you the furniture which is yours ...!”

Sophia kept silence.

“How am I to live, I demand of you?” Madame Foucault asked weakly.

“By being respectable and dealing with respectable people!” said Sophia, uncompromisingly, in tones of steel.

“I am unhappy!” murmured the elder woman.  “However, you are more strong than I!”

She brusquely dabbed her eyes, gave a little sob, and ran out of the room.  Sophia listened at the door, and heard her dismiss the would-be tenants of the best bedroom.  She wondered that she should possess such moral ascendancy over the woman, she so young and ingenuous!  For, of course, she had not meant to remove the furniture.  She could hear Madame Foucault sobbing quietly in one of the other rooms; and her lips curled.