She was a slut,
m'sieu'--did I not know her? Did Ma'm'selle Slut not wait at table in
this house and lead the men a dance here night and day-day and night till
I found it out! Well, off he went with the slut, and left the lady
behind. . . . You men, you treat women so."
Jean Jacques put out a hand as though to argue with her. "Sometimes it is
the other way," he retorted. "Most of us have seen it like that."
"Well, for sure, you're right enough there, m'sieu'," was the response.
"I've got nothing to say to that, except that it's a man that runs away
with a woman, or that gets her to leave her husband when she does go.
There's always a man that says, 'Come along, I'm the better chap for
you.'"
Jean Jacques wearily turned his head away towards the cage where his
canary was beginning to pipe its evening lay.
"It all comes to the same thing in the end," he said pensively; and then
he who had been so quiet since he came to the little hotel--Glozel's, it
was called--began to move about the room excitedly, running his fingers
through his still bushy hair, which, to his credit, was always as clean
as could be, burnished and shiny even at his mid-century period. He began
murmuring to himself, and a frown settled on his fore head. Mme. Glozel
saw that she had perturbed him, and that no doubt she had roused some
memories which made sombre the sunny little room where the canary sang;
where, to ravish the eyes of the pessimist, was a picture of Louis XVI.
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