“She is not merely a good cook,” said Herrera to Esther; “she is a past-master, and might make Careme mad with jealousy.  Asie can do everything by way of cooking.  She will turn you out a simple dish of beans that will make you wonder whether the angels have not come down to add some herb from heaven.  She will go to market herself every morning, and fight like the devil she is to get things at the lowest prices; she will tire out curiosity by silence.

“You are to be supposed to have been in India, and Asie will help you to give effect to this fiction, for she is one of those Parisians who are born to be of any nationality they please.  But I do not advise that you should give yourself out to be a foreigner.—­Europe, what do you say?”

Europe was a perfect contrast to Asie, for she was the smartest waiting-maid that Monrose could have hoped to see as her rival on the stage.  Slight, with a scatter-brain manner, a face like a weasel, and a sharp nose, Europe’s features offered to the observer a countenance worn by the corruption of Paris life, the unhealthy complexion of a girl fed on raw apples, lymphatic but sinewy, soft but tenacious.  One little foot was set forward, her hands were in her apron-pockets, and she fidgeted incessantly without moving, from sheer excess of liveliness.  Grisette and stage super, in spite of her youth she must have tried many trades.  As full of evil as a dozen Madelonnettes put together, she might have robbed her parents, and sat on the bench of a police-court.

Asie was terrifying, but you knew her thoroughly from the first; she descended in a straight line from Locusta; while Europe filled you with uneasiness, which could not fail to increase the more you had to do with her; her corruption seemed boundless.  You felt that she could set the devils by the ears.

“Madame might say she had come from Valenciennes,” said Europe in a precise little voice.  “I was born there—­Perhaps monsieur,” she added to Lucien in a pedantic tone, “will be good enough to say what name he proposes to give to madame?”

“Madame van Bogseck,” the Spaniard put in, reversing Esther’s name.  “Madame is a Jewess, a native of Holland, the widow of a merchant, and suffering from a liver-complaint contracted in Java.  No great fortune —­not to excite curiosity.”

“Enough to live on—­six thousand francs a year; and we shall complain of her stinginess?” said Europe.

“That is the thing,” said the Spaniard, with a bow.  “You limbs of Satan!” he went on, catching Asie and Europe exchanging a glance that displeased him, “remember what I have told you.  You are serving a queen; you owe her as much respect as to a queen; you are to cherish her as you would cherish a revenge, and be as devoted to her as to me.  Neither the door-porter, nor the neighbors, nor the other inhabitants of the house—­in short, not a soul on earth is to know what goes on here.  It is your business to balk curiosity if any should be roused.  —­And madame,” he went on laying his broad hairy hand on Esther’s arm, “madame must not commit the smallest imprudence; you must prevent it in case of need, but always with perfect respect.