“See what a naughty little mother I have, monsieur Bradley,” she exclaimed. “She pretends always to forget that I do not like my afternoon coffee made with chicory. In the morning, yes; I admit it; later in the day, no. Ah, Maman! no excuses!! _Je vous connais._ Economy is the motive!—She has never escaped the fear that unless one saves all one’s _sous_ one may die in indigence.” “Chicory, Blanche? What do you say of chicory?” the old lady inquired, leaning an ear towards her grandchild. “_Mais c’est très sain, la chicorée. Ca rafraichit le sang._—If you drink chicory every day in your coffee”—and now it was an eye she turned, half closed in sagacious admonition, on the startled Giles—“you will not need to purge yourself, my young man.” “_Fi donc, Grand’mère!_ We do not talk of _l’hygiène_ now!” laughed mademoiselle Fontaine. “Ah, it is a thing never to forget,” said madame Dumont. “If Chopin had not neglected his health, how many more works of genius he would have given to the world.—He was my master, did I tell you, monsieur Gillet?”—mademoiselle Fontaine had not succeeded in conveying Giles’s name to her in a retainable form. “I had great talent for the piano. It was said to me, when I chose the theatre as a career, that it was one I chose and one I threw away.—You have heard of George Sand in England?” Giles said that they heard of her. “_Femme exécrable!_” madame Dumont exclaimed. “_Femme sans cœur!_ How many lives did she not destroy!” “Ah, but I am always on the side of the woman, when it comes to _les affaires de cœur_,” said mademoiselle Fontaine, with a smile at Giles. “We are so often the losers that I feel a certain satisfaction when a woman, even if ruthlessly, redresses the balance. And with all its romanticism, what a great talent it was, that of the good George! Do not say too much ill of her.” “Good! You can call a woman good who tricks one lover under the nose of the other! Do you forget Pagello and Alfred de Musset!” cried madame Dumont. “As for Musset; let it pass; he was not one to be pitied.—But Chopin! A man as simple as a child. _Non. C’était un monstre!_” madame Dumont declared. “And I will leave you to tell monsieur Giles what you think of George Sand while I ask mademoiselle Alix to come upstairs with me and see a new dress that has come from Paris,” said mademoiselle Blanche, thus further demonstrating her intelligence to Giles, for indeed madame Dumont’s reminiscences had begun to make him uneasy. Alix had picked up the friendly “fox” and was giving scant attention; but once her impeding presence was removed, madame Dumont’s recitals took on a disconcerting raciness and when, presently, madame Collet gathered together the tea-things and carried away the tray, the old lady, as if she had bided her time, lurched towards Giles, with a terrible leering smile, to whisper: “_Elle est belle, n’est-ce pas, madame Vervier?_” “_Très belle_,” said Giles, drawing away a little.