"It is what I love, the bustle of life," replied Madame Valière, simply.
"Ah!" said Madame Dépine, impressed beyond masking-point, "I suppose when one has had the habit of Courts--"
Madame Valière shuddered unexpectedly. "Let us not speak of it. Take a fig."
But Madame Dépine persisted--though she took the fig. "Ah! those were brave days when we had still an Emperor and an Empress to drive to the Bois with their equipages and outriders. Ah, how pretty it was!"
"But the President has also"--a fit of coughing interrupted Madame Valière--"has also outriders."
"But he is so bourgeois--a mere man of the people," said Madame Dépine.
"They are the most decent sort of folk. But do you not feel cold? I will light a fire." She bent towards the wood-box.
"No, no; do not trouble. I shall be going in a moment. I have a large fire blazing in my room."
"Then suppose we go and sit there," said poor Madame Valière.
Poor Madame Dépine was seized with a cough, more protracted than any of which she had complained.
"Provided it has not gone out in my absence," she stammered at last. "I will go first and see if it is in good trim."
"No, no; it is not worth the trouble of moving." And Madame Valière drew her street-cloak closer round her slim form. "But I have lived so long in Russia, I forget people call this cold."
"Ah! the Princess travelled far?" said Madame Dépine, eagerly.
"Too far," replied Madame Valière, with a flash of Gallic wit. "But who has told you of the Princess?"
"If only she didn't imagine herself a powdered marquise in it! To see her standing before the mirror in the salon!"
"The beautiful spectacle!" assented Madame Valière.
"Ah! but I don't forget--if she does--that her mother wheeled a fruit-barrow through the streets of Tonnerre!"
"Ah! yes, I knew you were from Tonnerre--dear Tonnerre!"
"The old gossip!" cried Madame Dépine--"though not so old as she feigns. But did she tell you of her mother, too, and the fruit-barrow?"
"I do not say not," said Madame Dépine, a whit disconcerted. "Nevertheless, when one's mother is a merchant of the four seasons--"
"Provided she sold fruit as good as this! Take another fig, I beg of you."
"Thank you. These are indeed excellent," said Madame Dépine. "She owed all her good fortune to a _coup_ in the lottery."