For a week following this interview, the tenant of the first floor front was in an unapproachable humor. He went in and out at all hours of the day, scolded his servant, ate hardly anything, slept badly, and did not once go to the windows looking on the courtyard. One day Frontin attempted to speak of the young tenant of the entresol; but his master abruptly interposed, saying: "If you so much as refer to the shirtmaker, if you venture to repeat a single word relating to her, I'll put you out of doors with a kick--you know where!" But at the end of the week, Monsieur de Mardeille, alarmed by his loss of appetite and his inability to sleep, and observing in dismay that his rosy, smiling face was assuming the semblance of a baked apple, that his brow was becoming wrinkled and his cheeks sunken, and that, if that sort of thing continued, he would soon appear at least as old as he really was, said to himself: "Things can't go on like this! I try to divert my thoughts, and I can't do it! I pay court to other women, they welcome me with open arms, yet I don't go back to them! The image of that little Georgette is always before my eyes! I see her going back and forth in her chamber, in her jacket and short skirt. Her voluptuous shape turns my head! Decidedly I am mad over that girl. And after all, I should be a great fool to pine away with longing, when it is in my power to be that girl's happy lover! I know what it will cost me. But, still, twelve thousand francs won't ruin me; especially as she said in so many words that she would not ask for anything more after that. And there are women who ask all the time. You don't give them so much at one time, but it amounts to the same thing, indeed it costs more in the end!" While making these reflections, Monsieur de Mardeille walked about the room, and finally said to Frontin: "Frontin, is it long since you met our little neighbor?" The valet, recalling his master's prohibition, stared at him in amazement, and then replied: "Madame Picotée? No; I met her in the courtyard no longer ago than this morning." "What's that? who said anything about Madame Picotée, you idiot? Didn't I say our little neighbor? What do you suppose I care for that old party? I am talking about the girl on the entresol, the charming Georgette." When he heard the pretty shirtmaker's name, Frontin said to himself: "This is a test; monsieur forbade me to speak of her; he is trying to test me." Whereupon he put a finger to his lip and turned to his master, shaking his head and laughing, as if to say: "Not such a fool as you think!" And Monsieur de Mardeille, thoroughly out of patience, shook his servant's arm, crying: "Will you answer me, you clown?" "You forbade me to mention the young girl on the entresol, monsieur." "I retract that order, numskull!" "Oh! I couldn't guess that!"