exclaimed
La Cibot, plunging down upon Pons and covering him by force with the
bedclothes.

"How should I not love you?" said poor Pons.

"You love me, really?... There, there, forgive me, sir!" she said,
crying and wiping her eyes. "Ah, yes, of course, you love me, as you
love a servant, that is the way!--a servant to whom you throw an annuity
of six hundred francs like a crust you fling into a dog's kennel--"

"Oh! Mme. Cibot," cried Pons, "for what do you take me? You do not know
me."

"Ah! you will care even more than that for me," she said, meeting Pons'
eyes. "You will love your kind old Cibot like a mother, will you not?
A mother, that is it! I am your mother; you are both of you my
children.... Ah, if I only knew them that caused you this sorrow, I
would do that which would bring me into the police-courts, and even to
prison; I would tear their eyes out! Such people deserve to die at the
Barriere Saint-Jacques, and that is too good for such scoundrels. ... So
kind, so good as you are (for you have a heart of gold), you were sent
into the world to make some woman happy!... Yes, you would have her
happy, as anybody can see; you were cut out for that. In the very
beginning, when I saw how you were with M. Schmucke, I said to myself,
'M. Pons has missed the life he was meant for; he was made to be a good
husband.' Come, now, you like women."

"Ah, yes," said Pons, "and no woman has been mine."

"Really?" exclaimed La Cibot, with a provocative air as she came nearer
and took Pons' hand in hers. "Do you not know what it is to love a woman
that will do anything for her lover? Is it possible? If I were in your
place, I should not wish to leave this world for another until I had
known the greatest happiness on earth!... Poor dear! If I was now what I
was once, I would leave Cibot for you! upon my word, I would! Why, with
a nose shaped like that--for you have a fine nose--how did you manage
it, poor cherub?... You will tell me that 'not every woman knows a man
when she sees him'; and a pity it is that they marry so at random as
they do, it makes you sorry to see it.--Now, for my own part, I
should have thought that you had had mistresses by the dozen--dancers,
actresses, and duchesses, for you went out so much. ... When you
went out, I used to say to Cibot, 'Look! there is M. Pons going
a-gallivanting,' on my word, I did, I was so sure that women ran after
you. Heaven made you for love.... Why, my dear sir, I found