Madame Chanteau gently went upstairs and listened at Pauline's door. She heard her walking hurriedly about the room, opening and shutting her drawers. For a moment she thought of entering, provoking an explanation, and bringing the affair to an end with a flood of tears. But she was afraid; she felt that she would stammer and blush before the girl, and this feeling served to increase her hatred of her. So, instead of knocking at the door, she went downstairs to the kitchen, treading as silently as she could. An idea had just occurred to her. 'Have you heard the row to which Mademoiselle Pauline has just been treating us?' she asked Véronique, who had begun furiously polishing her brass-ware. The servant, with her head bent over the polish, made no answer. 'She is getting quite unbearable! I can do nothing with her. Would you believe that she is actually talking about leaving us at once? She is packing her things at this moment. I wish you would go upstairs and try to reason with her.' Then, as she still got no answer, she added: 'Are you deaf?' 'If I don't answer, it's because I don't choose,' Véronique cried snappishly, bursting with angry excitement, and rubbing a candlestick violently enough to hurt her fingers. 'She is quite right in going away. If I had been in her place, I would have taken myself off long ago.' Madame Chanteau listened with gaping lips, quite stupefied by this mutinous outburst of loquacity. 'I'm not talkative,' Véronique continued, 'but you mustn't press me too far or I shall let out all I think. I should have liked to fling Mademoiselle Pauline into the sea on the day you first brought her here as a little girl, but I can't bear to see anyone ill-treated, and you have all of you treated her so abominably that one of these days I shall give anyone who hurts her a swinging box on the ears. You can give me warning, if you like; I don't care a button; but I will let her into some nice secrets. Yes, she shall know all about how you have treated her, with all your fine pretences to honour and honesty.' 'Hold your tongue! You are quite mad!' cried Madame Chanteau, much disquieted by this fresh explosion. 'No, I will not hold my tongue! It is all too shameful! Shameful, I say! Do you hear me? I have been choking with it all for years and years! Wasn't it bad enough of you to rob her of her money? Couldn't you have been content with that, without tearing her poor little heart to shreds? Oh yes! I know all about it; I have seen through all your underhand plottings. Monsieur Lazare is perhaps not quite so calculating as you are; but in other respects he's not much better than you, for he wouldn't much mind giving her her death-blow out of mere selfishness, just to save himself from feeling bored! Ah, me! there are some people who come into this world only to be preyed upon and devoured by others.'