an believe that what I do is done for the best,
I will come back again. Till then I shall stay in my own room. You were
like my own child to me; did anybody ever see a child revolt against its
mother?... No, no, M. Schmucke, I do not want to hear more. I will bring
you _your_ dinner and wait upon _you_, but you must take a nurse. Ask M.
Poulain about it."

And she went out, slamming the door after her so violently that the
precious, fragile objects in the room trembled. To Pons in his torture,
the rattle of china was like the final blow dealt by the executioner to
a victim broken on the wheel.

An hour later La Cibot called to Schmucke through the door, telling him
that his dinner was waiting for him in the dining-room. She would not
cross the threshold. Poor Schmucke went out to her with a haggard,
tear-stained face.

"Mein boor Bons in vandering," said he; "he says dat you are ein pad
voman. It ees his illness," he added hastily, to soften La Cibot and
excuse his friend.

"Oh, I have had enough of his illness! Look here, he is neither father,
nor husband, nor brother, nor child of mine. He has taken a dislike to
me; well and good, that is enough! As for you, you see, I would follow
_you_ to the end of the world; but when a woman gives her life, her
heart, and all her savings, and neglects her husband (for here has Cibot
fallen ill), and then hears that she is a bad woman--it is coming it
rather too strong, it is."

"Too shtrong?"

"Too strong, yes. Never mind idle words. Let us come to the facts. As to
that, you owe me for three months at a hundred and ninety francs--that
is five hundred seventy francs; then there is the rent that I have paid
twice (here are the receipts), six hundred more, including rates and the
sou in the franc for the porter--something under twelve hundred francs
altogether, and with the two thousand francs besides--without interest,
mind you--the total amounts to three thousand one hundred and ninety-two
francs. And remember that you will want at least two thousand francs
before long for the doctor, and the nurse, and the medicine, and
the nurse's board. That was why I borrowed a thousand francs of M.
Pillerault," and with that she held up Gaudissart's bank-note.

It may readily be conceived that Schmucke listened to this reckoning
with amazement, for he knew about as much of business as a cat knows of
music.

"Montame Zipod," he expostulated, "Bons haf lost his head. Bardon him,
and n