"You are trying to make me angry, aren't you? But I refuse to leave you till you have admitted that you are wrong," she persisted. "It's an outrageous slander. Monsieur Long (that is his name, Monsieur Long), he lives in the same house with me, on the same landing; et voilà tout. Dame! Can I prevent him? Am I the landlord? And, for that, they say I'm 'collée' with him. I don't care what they say. But you! I swear to you it is an infamous lie. Will you come home with me now, and see?"
"Oh, that's mere quibbling. You go with him everywhere, you dine with him, you are never seen without him."
"Dieu de Dieu!" wailed P'tit-Bleu. "How shall I convince you? He is my neighbour. Is it forbidden to know one's neighbours? I swear to you, I give you my word of honour, it is nothing else. How to make you believe me?"
"Well, my dear," said I, "if you wish me to believe you, break with him. Chuck him up. Drop his acquaintance. Nobody in his senses will believe you so long as you go trapesing about the Quarter with him."
"Oh, but no," she cried, "I can't drop his acquaintance."
"Ah, there it is," cried I.
"There are reasons. There are reasons why I can't, why I mustn't."
"I thought so." "Ah, voyons!" she broke out, losing patience. "Will you not believe my word of honour? Will you force me to tell you things that don't concern you—that I have no right to tell? Well, then, listen. I cannot drop his acquaintance, because—this is a secret—he would die of shame if he thought I had betrayed it —you will never breathe it to a soul—because I have discovered that he has a—a vice, a weakness. No—but listen. He is anEnglishman
