The aspect of the room which he occupied was forlorn, but everything in it was scrupulously clean. At the end of the alcove was a little bed, composed of a single mattress; a commode, a table, and four walnut chairs, carefully waxed, completed the furniture. The open door of a small adjoining room showed a bed of neatly-woven thongs. Although the weather was extremely cold, there was no trace of fire in the fireplace of this wintry chamber. At the foot of the painted wooden couch were two little pastel portraits, in rich gilt frames. One represented a man of middle age, wearing a wig of the Louis XIV. style, and having the cross of the Order of St. Louis attached to one of the clasps of his breastplate. The other was that of a lady of rare beauty, dressed as Diana the huntress. There was recognizable in this room an air of proud poverty, which would have softened any female heart but that of Madelaine Landry. "Does not _one_ M. Létorière live here?" she inquired brusquely of the tall old man, clad with a woollen coverlet as with a Roman toga. These words, "one M. Létorière," seemed to affect the ex-professor of Plessis College disagreeably. He answered with caustic dignity: "I only know that the great and powerful Lord Lancelot-Marie-Joseph de Vighan, Seigneur of Marsailles and Marquis of Létorière, lodges in this apartment, my good woman." "'Good woman!' Don't 'good woman' me!" cried Madelaine, angrily, "I'll let you know, I will, if I'm a 'good woman!' Where is your master, your beautiful Marquis of Sharpers? your high and powerful seigneur of Roguery?" Jean François Dominique drew himself up erect in his toga, extended his long arm, naked and scrawny, from the side of the door, and said in an imperial voice: "Clear out this instant! The Marquis, my noble pupil, has not come in . . . I do not know when he will return . . . but at any rate I presume it will give him no pleasure to see you, my dear . . . for if anger disfigures the most charming countenances, as says the sage, _à fortiori_, it makes truly hideous those whom nature has treated like a cruel step-mother! This applies particularly to you. Do me the favor to" . . . and Dominique pointed again to the door with a very significant gesture. Enraged by this insult, the tailor's wife threw her umbrella on the ground, seated herself hastily on a chair, crying: "'Tis well for you, you villanious old owl . . . to speak of the homeliness of others! This fine boy is your pupil, is he? Good gracious, I can readily believe it, for you look like a master in iniquity. You miserable old wretch! As for me, I shall not budge . . . not till I am paid . . . do you hear? _paid_; or by St. Madelaine, my patron saint, if I go, it will only be to search for a constable . . ." "Aha! Paid, and for what, if you please?" demanded Dominique.