es, a
lady friend recommended Madame Bourdieu to my wife," said he; "but why
do you ask me?"

And as he spoke he looked at Mathieu with an expression of anguish,
as if that sudden mention of Madame Bourdieu's name signified that the
young fellow had guessed his secret preoccupations. It was as though he
had been abruptly surprised in wrong-doing. Perhaps, too, certain dim,
haunting thoughts, which he had long been painfully revolving in his
mind, without as yet being able to come to a decision, took shape at
that moment. At all events, he turned pale and his lips trembled.

Then, as Mathieu gave him to understand that it was a question of
placing Norine somewhere, he involuntarily let an avowal escape him.

"My wife was speaking to me of Madame Bourdieu only this morning," he
began. "Oh! I don't know how it happened, but, as you are aware,
Reine was born so many years ago that I can't give you any precise
information. It seems that the woman has done well, and is now at the
head of a first-class establishment. Inquire there yourself; I have no
doubt you will find what you want there."

Mathieu followed this advice; but at the same time, as he had been
warned that Madame Bourdieu's terms were rather high, he stifled his
prejudices and began by repairing to the Rue du Rocher in order to
reconnoitre Madame Rouche's establishment and make some inquiries of
her. The mere aspect of the place chilled him. It was one of the black
houses of old Paris, with a dark, evil-smelling passage, leading into
a small yard which the nurse's few squalid rooms overlooked. Above the
passage entrance was a yellow signboard which simply bore the name of
Madame Rouche in big letters. She herself proved to be a person of five-
or six-and-thirty, gowned in black and spare of figure, with a leaden
complexion, scanty hair of no precise color, and a big nose of unusual
prominence. With her low, drawling speech, her prudent, cat-like
gestures, and her sour smile, he divined her to be a dangerous,
unscrupulous woman. She told him that, as the accommodation at her
disposal was so small, she only took boarders for a limited time, and
this of course enabled him to curtail his inquiries. Glad to have done
with her, he hurried off, oppressed by nausea and vaguely frightened by
what he had seen of the place.

On the other hand, Madame Bourdieu's establishment, a little
three-storied house in the Rue de Miromesnil, between the Rue La Boetie
and the Rue