She went downstairs and spent the night at Cibot's bedside,
inwardly resolving that Mlle. Remonencq should take her place towards
two or three in the morning, when she would go up and have a look at
the document.
Mlle. Brisetout's visit towards half-past ten that night seemed
natural enough to La Cibot; but in her terror lest the ballet-girl
should mention Gaudissart's gift of a thousand francs, she went
upstairs with her, lavishing polite speeches and flattery as if Mlle.
Heloise had been a queen.
"Ah! my dear, you are much nicer here on your own ground than at the
theatre," Heloise remarked. "I advise you to keep to your employment."
Heloise was splendidly dressed. Bixiou, her lover, had brought her in
his carriage on the way to an evening party at Mariette's. It so fell
out that the first-floor lodger, M. Chapoulot, a retired braid
manufacturer from the Rue Saint-Denis, returning from the
Ambigu-Comique with his wife and daughter, was dazzled by a vision of
such a costume and such a charming woman upon their staircase.
"Who is that, Mme. Cibot?" asked Mme. Chapoulot.
"A no-better-than-she-should-be, a light-skirts that you may see
half-naked any evening for a couple of francs," La Cibot answered in
an undertone for Mme. Chapoulot's ear.
"Victorine!" called the braid manufacturer's wife, "let the lady pass,
child."
The matron's alarm signal was not lost upon Heloise.
"Your daughter must be more inflammable than tinder, madame, if you
are afraid that she will catch fire by touching me," she said.
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