She began mechanically to watch an old woman who was slowly making the circuit of the hall with a noiseless step, like a bird of night flying in a circle. A black hat, of the hue of charred paper, confined her _bandeaux_ of grizzled hair. From her square, high masculine shoulders, hung a sombre-hued Scotch tartan. When she reached the door, she cast a last glance about the hall, that embraced everyone therein, with the eye of a vulture seeking in vain for food. Suddenly there was an outcry: a police officer was ejecting a diminutive youth who tried to bite his hands and clung to the tables, against which, as he was dragged along, he struck with a noise like breaking furniture. As Germinie turned her head she spied Jupillon: he was sitting between two women at a green table in a window-recess, smoking. One of the two was a tall blonde with a small quantity of frizzled flaxen hair, a flat, stupid face and round eyes. A red flannel chemise lay in folds on her back, and she had both hands in the pockets of a black apron which she was flapping up and down on her dark red skirt. The other, a short, dark creature, whose face was still red from having been scrubbed with soap, was enveloped as to her head, with the coquetry of a fishwoman, in a white knitted hood with a blue border. Jupillon had recognized Germinie. When he saw her rise and approach him, with her eyes fixed upon his face, he whispered something to the woman in the hood, rested his elbows defiantly on the table and waited. "Hallo! you here," he exclaimed when Germinie stood before him, erect, motionless and mute. "This is a surprise!--Waiter! another bowl!" And, emptying the bowl of sweetened wine into the two women's glasses, he continued: "Come, don't make up faces--sit down there." And, as Germinie did not budge: "Go on! These ladies are friends of mine--ask them!" "Melie," said the woman in the hood to the other woman, in a voice like a diseased crow's, "don't you see? She's monsieur's mother. Make room for the lady if she'd like to drink with us." Germinie cast a murderous glance at the woman. "Well! what's the matter?" the woman continued; "that don't suit you, madame, eh? Excuse me! you ought to have told me beforehand. How old do you suppose she is, Melie, eh? _Sapristi!_ You select young ones, my boy, you don't put yourself out!" Jupillon smiled internally, and simpered and sneered externally. His whole manner displayed the cowardly delight that evil-minded persons take in watching the suffering of those who suffer because of loving them. "I have something to say to you--to you!--not here--outside," said Germinie. "Much joy to you! Coming, Melie?" said the woman in the hood, lighting the stub of a cigar that Jupillon had left on the table beside a piece of lemon. "What do you want?" said Jupillon, impressed, in spite of himself, by Germinie's tone. "Come!"