Then she began explaining things:  “You can’t imagine what a funny fellow he is!  He lights it up in mid-day, and stays here, smoking a cigar and gazing into vacancy.  But it amuses him, it seems.  Well, it doesn’t matter; I’ve an idea he must have spent a lot of money in his time.”

Helene went through the rooms in silence.  They seemed to her in bad taste.  There was too much pink everywhere; the furniture also looked far too new.

“He calls himself Monsieur Vincent,” continued the old woman, rambling on.  “Of course, it’s all the same to me.  As long as he pays, my gentleman—­”

“Well, good-bye, Mother Fetu,” said Helene, in whose throat a feeling of suffocation was gathering.

She was burning to get away, but on opening a door she found herself threading three small rooms, the bareness and dirt of which were repulsive.  The paper hung in tatters from the walls, the ceilings were grimy, and old plaster littered the broken floors.  The whole place was pervaded by a smell of long prevalent squalor.

“Not that way! not that way!” screamed Mother Fetu.  “That door is generally shut.  These are the other rooms which they haven’t attempted to clean.  My word! it’s cost him quite enough already!  Yes, indeed, these aren’t nearly so nice!  Come this way, my good lady—­come this way!”

On Helene’s return to the pink boudoir, she stopped to kiss her hand once more.

“You see, I’m not ungrateful!  I shall never forget the shoes.  How well they fit me! and how warm they are!  Why, I could walk half-a-dozen miles with them.  What can I beg Heaven to grant you?  O Lord, hearken to me, and grant that she may be the happiest of women—­in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!” A devout enthusiasm had suddenly come upon Mother Fetu; she repeated the sign of the cross again and again, and bowed the knee in the direction of the crystal lamp.  This done, she opened the door conducting to the landing, and whispered in a changed voice into Helene’s ear: 

“Whenever you like to call, just knock at the kitchen door; I’m always there!”

Dazed, and glancing behind her as though she were leaving a place of dubious repute, Helene hurried down the staircase, reascended the Passage des Eaux, and regained the Rue Vineuse, without consciousness of the ground she was covering.  The old woman’s last words still rang in her ears.  In truth, no; never again would she set foot in that house, never again would she bear her charity thither.  Why should she ever rap at the kitchen door again?  At present she was satisfied; she had seen what was to be seen.  And she was full of scorn for herself —­for everybody.  How disgraceful to have gone there!  The recollection of the place with its tawdry finery and squalid surroundings filled her with mingled anger and disgust.

“Well, madame,” exclaimed Rosalie, who was awaiting her return on the staircase, “the dinner will be nice.  Dear, oh dear! it’s been burning for half an hour!”