XL

“No⁠—not this time, no,” said Germinie, rising from the foot of Jupillon’s bed where she was sitting. “There’s no way. Why, you know perfectly well that I haven’t a sou⁠—anything you can call a sou! You’ve seen the stockings I wear, haven’t you?”

She lifted her skirt and showed him her stockings, all full of holes and tied together with strings. “I haven’t a change of anything. Money? Why, I didn’t even have enough to give mademoiselle a few flowers on her birthday. I bought her a bunch of violets for a sou! Oh! yes, money, indeed! That last twenty francs⁠—do you know where I got them? I took them out of mademoiselle’s box! I’ve put them back. But that’s done with. I don’t want any more of that kind of thing. It will do for once. Where do you expect me to get money now, just tell me that, will you? You can’t pawn your skin at the Mont-de-Piété⁠—unless!⁠—But as to doing anything of that sort again, never in my life! Whatever else you choose, but no stealing! I won’t do it again. Oh! I know very well what you will do. So much the worse!”

“Well! have you worked yourself up enough?” said Jupillon. “If you’d told me that about the twenty francs, do you suppose I’d have taken it? I didn’t suppose you were as hard up as all that. I saw that you went on as usual. I fancied it wouldn’t put you out to lend me a twenty-franc piece, and I’d have returned it in a week or two with the others. But you don’t say anything? Oh! well, I’m done, I won’t ask you for any more. But that’s no reason we should quarrel, as I can see.” And he added, with an indefinable glance at Germinie: “Till Thursday, eh?”

“Till Thursday!” said Germinie, desperately. She longed to throw herself into Jupillon’s arms, to ask his pardon for her poverty, to say to him: “You see, I can’t do it!”

She repeated: “Till Thursday!” and took her leave.

When, on Thursday, she knocked at the door of Jupillon’s apartment on the ground floor, she thought she heard a man’s hurried step at the other end of the room. The door opened; before her stood Jupillon’s cousin with her hair in a net, wearing a red jacket and slippers, and with the costume and bearing of a woman who is at home in a man’s house. Her belongings were tossed about here and there: Germinie saw them on the chairs she had paid for.

“Whom does madame wish to see?” demanded the cousin, impudently.

“Monsieur Jupillon?”

“He has gone out.”

“I’ll wait for him,” said Germinie, and she attempted to enter the other room.

“You’ll wait at the porter’s lodge then;” and the cousin barred the way.

“When will he return?”

“When the hens have teeth,” said the girl, seriously, and shut the door in her face.

“Well! this is just what I expected of him,” said Germinie to herself, as she walked along the street. The pavement seemed to give way beneath her trembling legs.