Chapter 6

"She has demanded a new lamp; I told you she would!" This
communication was made me by Madame Beaurepas a couple of days later.
"And she has asked for a new tapis de lit, and she has requested me
to provide Celestine with a pair of light shoes. I told her that, as
a general thing, cooks are not shod with satin. That poor
Celestine!"

"Mrs. Church may be exacting," I said, "but she is a clever little
woman."

"A lady who pays but five francs and a half shouldn't be too clever.
C'est deplace. I don't like the type."

"What type do you call Mrs. Church's?"

"Mon Dieu," said Madame Beaurepas, "c'est une de ces mamans comme
vous en avez, qui promenent leur fille."

"She is trying to marry her daughter? I don't think she's of that
sort."

But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea. "She is trying it in
her own way; she does it very quietly. She doesn't want an American;
she wants a foreigner. And she wants a mari serieux. But she is
travelling over Europe in search of one. She would like a
magistrate."

"A magistrate?"

"A gros bonnet of some kind; a professor or a deputy."

"I am very sorry for the poor girl," I said, laughing.

"You needn't pity her too much; she's a sly thing."

"Ah, for that, no!" I exclaimed. "She's a charming girl."

Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin. "She has hooked you, eh? But
the mother won't have you."

I developed my idea, without heeding this insinuation. "She's a
charming girl, but she is a little odd. It's a necessity of her
position. She is less submissive to her mother than she has to
pretend to be. That's in self-defence; it's to make her life
possible."

"She wishes to get away from her mother," continued Madame Beaurepas.
"She wishes to courir les champs."

"She wishes to go to America, her native country."

"Precisely. And she will certainly go."

"I hope so!" I rejoined.

"Some fine morning--or evening--she will go off with a young man;
probably with a young American."

"Allons donc!" said I, with disgust.

"That will be quite America enough," pursued my cynical hostess. "I
have kept a boarding-house for forty years. I have seen that type."

"Have such things as that happened chez vous?" I asked.

"Everything has happened chez moi. But nothing has happened more
than once. Therefore this won't happen here. It will be at the next
place they go to, or the next. Besides, here