" said Mme Maloir
sententiously when left alone with Mme Lerat.

"Four kings," replied this lady, whom the play greatly excited.

And they both plunged into an interminable game.

The table had not been cleared. The smell of lunch and the cigarette
smoke filled the room with an ambient, steamy vapor. The two ladies had
again set to work dipping lumps of sugar in brandy and sucking the same.
For twenty minutes at least they played and sucked simultaneously when,
the electric bell having rung a third time, Zoe bustled into the room
and roughly disturbed them, just as if they had been her own friends.

"Look here, that's another ring. You can't stay where you are. If many
folks call I must have the whole flat. Now off you go, off you go!"

Mme Maloir was for finishing the game, but Zoe looked as if she was
going to pounce down on the cards, and so she decided to carry them off
without in any way altering their positions, while Mme Lerat undertook
the removal of the brandy bottle, the glasses and the sugar. Then they
both scudded to the kitchen, where they installed themselves at the
table in an empty space between the dishcloths, which were spread out to
dry, and the bowl still full of dishwater.

"We said it was three hundred and forty. It's your turn."

"I play hearts."

When Zoe returned she found them once again absorbed. After a silence,
as Mme Lerat was shuffling, Mme Maloir asked who it was.

"Oh, nobody to speak of," replied the servant carelessly; "a slip of a
lad! I wanted to send him away again, but he's such a pretty boy with
never a hair on his chin and blue eyes and a girl's face! So I told him
to wait after all. He's got an enormous bouquet in his hand, which he
never once consented to put down. One would like to catch him one--a
brat like that who ought to be at school still!"

Mme Lerat went to fetch a water bottle to mix herself some brandy and
water, the lumps of sugar having rendered her thirsty. Zoe muttered
something to the effect that she really didn't mind if she drank
something too. Her mouth, she averred, was as bitter as gall.

"So you put him--?" continued Mme Maloir.

"Oh yes, I put him in the closet at the end of the room, the little
unfurnished one. There's only one of my lady's trunks there and a table.
It's there I stow the lubbers."

And she was putting plenty of sugar in her grog when the electric bell
made her jump. Oh, drat it all! Wouldn't they let her have a drink
in pe