“Ah! yes,” said Pons; “nobody else has ever loved me all my life long—­”

“Ah! that is not kind of you, sir,” said Mme. Cibot; “then I do not love you, I suppose?”

“I do not say so, my dear Mme. Cibot.”

“Good.  You take me for a servant, do you, a common servant, as if I hadn’t no heart!  Goodness me! for eleven years you do for two old bachelors, you think of nothing but their comfort.  I have turned half a score of greengrocers’ shops upside down for you, I have talked people round to get you good Brie cheese; I have gone down as far as the market for fresh butter for you; I have taken such care of things that nothing of yours hasn’t been chipped nor broken in all these ten years; I have just treated you like my own children; and then to hear a ‘My dear Mme. Cibot,’ that shows that there is not a bit of feeling for you in the heart of an old gentleman that you have cared for like a king’s son! for the little King of Rome was not so well looked after.  He died in his prime; there is proof for you. . . .  Come, sir, you are unjust!  You are ungrateful!  It is because I am only a poor portress.  Goodness me! are you one of those that think we are dogs?—­”

“But, my dear Mme. Cibot—­”

“Indeed, you that know so much, tell me why we porters are treated like this, and are supposed to have no feelings; people look down on us in these days when they talk of Equality!—­As for me, am I not as good as another woman, I that was one of the finest women in Paris, and was called La belle Ecaillere, and received declarations seven or eight times a day?  And even now if I liked—­Look here, sir, you know that little scrubby marine store-dealer downstairs?  Very well, he would marry me any day, if I were a widow that is, with his eyes shut; he has had them looking wide open in my direction so often; he is always saying, ’Oh! what fine arms you have, Ma’am Cibot!—­I dreamed last night that it was bread and I was butter, and I was spread on the top.’  Look, sir, there is an arm!”

She rolled up her sleeve and displayed the shapeliest arm imaginable, as white and fresh as her hand was red and rough; a plump, round, dimpled arm, drawn from its merino sheath like a blade from the scabbard to dazzle Pons, who looked away.

“For every oyster the knife opened, the arm has opened a heart!  Well, it belongs to Cibot, and I did wrong when I neglected him, poor dear, HE would throw himself over a precipice at a word from me; while you, sir, that call me ‘My dear Mme. Cibot’ when I do impossible things for you—­”

“Do just listen to me,” broke in the patient; “I cannot call you my mother, nor my wife—­”

“No, never in all my born days will I take again to anybody—­”

“Do let me speak!” continued Pons.  “Let me see; I put M. Schmucke first—­”