"Then say how much you want, my little Madame Nourrisson," cried
Bixiou catching her round the waist.
"In the first place, my dear gentlemen, I have never, since I've been
in the business, found man or woman to haggle over happiness.
Besides," she said, letting a cold smile flicker on her lips, and
enforcing it by an icy glance full of catlike distrust, "if it doesn't
concern your happiness, it concerns your fortune; and at the height
where I find you lodging no man haggles over a 'dot'-- Come," she
said, "out with it! What is it you want to know, my lambs?"
"About the Beunier family," replied Bixiou, very glad to find out
something in this indirect manner about persons in whom he was
interested.
"Oh! as for that," she said, "one louis is quite enough."
"Why?"
"Because I hold all the mother's jewels and she's on tenter-hooks
every three months, I can tell you! It is hard work for her to pay the
interest on what I've lent her. Do you want to marry there,
simpleton?" she added, addressing Gazonal; "then pay me forty francs
and I'll talk four hundred worth."
Gazonal produced a forty-franc gold-piece, and Madame Nourrisson gave
him startling details as to the secret penury of certain so-called
fashionable women. This dealer in cast-off clothes, getting lively as
she talked, pictured herself unconsciously while telling of others.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48