FullReads

“What has she?” cried Hippolyte, pausing in the final stage of his operations upon the highly perfumed Flique.

“Do I know?” replied his wife with a shrug. “She thinks I stole her cat– I !”

“Quite simply, she hates you,” put in Flique. “And why not? She is old, and fat, and her business is taking itself off, like that! You are young and”–with a bow, as he rose–“beautiful, and your affairs march to a marvel. She is jealous, c’est tout! It is a bad character, that.”

“But, mon Dieu!”–

“But what does that say to you? Let her go her way, she and her cat. Au r’voir, ‘sieurs, ‘dame.”

And, rattling a couple of sous into the little urn reserved for tips, the policeman took his departure, amid a chorus of “Merci, m’sieu’, au r’voir, m’sieu’,” from Hippolyte and his duck-clad aids.

But what he had said remained behind. All day Madame Sergeot pondered upon the incident of the morning and Abel Flique’s comments thereupon, seeking out some more plausible reason for this hitherto unsuspected enmity than the mere contrast between her material conditions and those of Madame Caille seemed to her to afford. For, to a natural placidity of temperament, which manifested itself in a reluctance to incur the displeasure of any one, had been lately added in Esperance a shrewd commercial instinct, which told her that the fortunes of the Salon Malakoff might readily be imperilled by an unfriendly tongue. In the quartier, gossip spread quickly and took deep root. It was quite imaginably within the power of Madame Caille to circulate such rumours of Sergeot dishonesty as should draw their lately won custom from them and leave but empty chairs and discontent where now all was prosperity and satisfaction.

Suddenly there came to her the memory of that visit which she had never returned. Mon Dieu! and was not that reason enough? She, the youngest patronne in the quartier, to ignore deliberately the friendly call of a neighbour! At least it was not too late to make amends. So, when business lagged a little in the late afternoon, Madame Sergeot slipped from her desk, and, after a furtive touch to her hair, went in next door, to pour oil upon the troubled waters.

Madame Caille, throned at her counter, received her visitor with unexampled frigidity.

“Ah, it is you,” she said. “You have come to make some purchases, no doubt.”

“Eggs, madame,” answered her visitor, disconcerted, but tactfully accepting the hint.

“The best quality–or–?” demanded Alexandrine, with the suggestion of a sneer.

“The best, evidently, madame. Six, if you please. Spring weather at last, it would seem.”

To this generality the other made no reply. Descending from her stool, she blew sharply into a small paper bag, thereby distending it into a miniature balloon, and began selecting the eggs from a basket, holding each one to the light, and then dusting it with exaggerated care before placing it in the bag. While she was thus employed Zut advanced from a secluded corner, and, stretching her fore legs slowly to their utmost length, greeted her acquaintance of the morning with a yawn. Finding in the cat an outlet for her embarrassment, Esperance made another effort to give the interview a friendly turn.

“He is beautiful, madame, your matou,” she said.

“It is a female,” replied Madame Caille, turning abruptly from the basket, “and she does not care for strangers.”

This second snub was not calculated to encourage neighbourly overtures, but Madame Sergeot had felt herself to be in the wrong, and was not to be so readily repulsed.

“We do not see Monsieur Caille at the Salon Malakoff,” she continued. “We should be enchanted”–

“My husband shaves himself,” retorted Alexandrine, with renewed dignity.

“But his hair”–ventured Esperance.

” I cut it!” thundered her foe.

Here Madame Sergeot made a false move. She laughed. Then, in confusion, and striving, too late, to retrieve herself–“Pardon, madame,” she added, “but it seems droll to me, that. After all, ten sous is a sum so small”–