yielding knees. Their two friends followed them, and the crowd of boatmen
thronged about to shake their hands.

They had all four hired a small cottage close to the water's edge, and
they lived there as two households would have lived.

Their vice was public, recognized, patent. People talked of it as a
natural thing, which almost excited their sympathy, and whispered in
very low tones strange stories of dramas begotten of furious feminine
jealousies, of the stealthy visit of well-known women and of actresses
to the little house close to the water's edge.

A neighbor, horrified by these scandalous rumors, apprised the police,
and the inspector, accompanied by a man, had come to make inquiry. The
mission was a delicate one; it was impossible, in short, to reproach
these women, who did not abandon themselves to prostitution with
anything. The inspector, very much puzzled, indeed, ignorant of the
nature of the offenses suspected, had asked questions at random, and
made a lofty report conclusive of their innocence.

They laughed about it all the way to St. Germain. They walked about La
Grenonillere establishment with stately steps like queens; and seemed to
glory in their fame, rejoicing in the gaze that was fixed on them, so
superior to this crowd, to this mob, to these plebeians.

Madeleine and her lover watched them approach and in the girl's eyes a
fire lightened.

When the two first had reached the end of the table, Madeleine cried:

"Pauline!"

The large woman turned herself and stopped, continuing all the time to
hold the arm of her feminine cabin boy:

"Good gracious, Madeleine.... Do come and talk to me, my dear."

Paul squeezed his fingers upon his mistress's wrist; but she said to him,
with such an air:

"You know, my fine fellow, you can be off;" he said nothing and remained
alone.

Then they chatted in low voices, standing all three of them. Many
pleasant jests passed their lips, they spoke quickly; and Pauline looked
now and then at Paul, by stealth, with a shrewd and malicious smile.

At last, putting up with it no longer, he suddenly raised himself and in
a single bound was at their side, trembling in every limb. He seized
Madeleine by the shoulders:

"Come. I wish it," said he. "I have forbidden you to speak to these
scoundrels."

Whereupon Pauline raised her voice and set to work blackguarding him with
her Billingsgate vocabulary. All the bystanders laughed; they drew near
him; they ra