“M.  Schmucke! there is a heart for you,” cried La Cibot.  “Ah! he loves me, but then he is poor.  It is money that deadens the heart; and you are rich!  Oh, well, take a nurse, you will see what a life she will lead you; she will torment you, you will be like a cockchafer on a string.  The doctor will say that you must have plenty to drink, and she will do nothing but feed you.  She will bring you to your grave and rob you.  You do not deserve to have a Mme. Cibot!—­there!  When Dr. Poulain comes, ask him for a nurse.”

“Oh fiddlestickend!” the patient cried angrily. “Will you listen to me?  When I spoke of my friend Schmucke, I was not thinking of women.  I know quite well that no one cares for me so sincerely as you do, you and Schmucke—­”

“Have the goodness not to irritate yourself in this way!” exclaimed La Cibot, plunging down upon Pons and covering him by force with the bedclothes.

“How should I not love you?” said poor Pons.

“You love me, really? . . .  There, there, forgive me, sir!” she said, crying and wiping her eyes.  “Ah, yes, of course, you love me, as you love a servant, that is the way!—­a servant to whom you throw an annuity of six hundred francs like a crust you fling into a dog’s kennel—­”

“Oh!  Mme. Cibot,” cried Pons, “for what do you take me?  You do not know me.”

“Ah! you will care even more than that for me,” she said, meeting Pons’ eyes.  “You will love your kind old Cibot like a mother, will you not?  A mother, that is it!  I am your mother; you are both of you my children. . . .  Ah, if I only knew them that caused you this sorrow, I would do that which would bring me into the police-courts, and even to prison; I would tear their eyes out!  Such people deserve to die at the Barriere Saint-Jacques, and that is too good for such scoundrels. . . .  So kind, so good as you are (for you have a heart of gold), you were sent into the world to make some woman happy! . . .  Yes, you would have her happy, as anybody can see; you were cut out for that.  In the very beginning, when I saw how you were with M. Schmucke, I said to myself, ’M.  Pons has missed the life he was meant for; he was made to be a good husband.’  Come, now, you like women.”

“Ah, yes,” said Pons, “and no woman has been mine.”

“Really?” exclaimed La Cibot, with a provocative air as she came nearer and took Pons’ hand in hers.  “Do you not know what it is to love a woman that will do anything for her lover?  Is it possible?  If I were in your place, I should not wish to leave this world for another until I had known the greatest happiness on earth! . . .  Poor dear!  If I was now what I was once, I would leave Cibot for you! upon my word, I would!  Why, with a nose shaped like that—­for you have a fine nose —­how did you manage it, poor cherub? . . .  You will tell me that ’not every woman knows a man when she sees him’; and a pity it is that they marry so at random as they do, it