planting herself in front of
her sister.

La Normande sprang up, quivering with anger, and let the shawl fall to
the floor.

"Ah, you've been playing the spy, have you?" she screamed. "Dare to
repeat what you've just said!"

"You wretched coward!" repeated Claire, in still more insulting tones
than before.

Thereupon La Normande struck Claire with all her force; and in return
Claire, turning terribly pale, sprang upon her sister and dug her nails
into her neck. They struggled together for a moment or two, tearing
at each other's hair and trying to choke one another. Claire, fragile
though she was, pushed La Normande backward with such tremendous
violence that they both fell against the wardrobe, smashing the mirror
on its front. Muche was roaring, and old Madame Mehudin called to
Mademoiselle Saget to come and help her separate the sisters. Claire,
however, shook herself free.

"Coward! Coward!" she cried; "I'll go and tell the poor fellow that it
is you who have betrayed him."

Her mother, however, blocked the doorway, and would not let her pass,
while La Normande seized her from behind, and then, Mademoiselle Saget
coming to the assistance of the other two, the three of them dragged
Claire into her bedroom and locked the door upon her, in spite of all
her frantic resistance. In her rage she tried to kick the door down, and
smashed everything in the room. Soon afterwards, however, nothing could
be heard except a furious scratching, the sound of metal scarping at the
plaster. The girl was trying to loosen the door hinges with the points
of her scissors.

"She would have murdered me if she had had a knife," said La Normande,
looking about for her clothes, in order to dress herself. "She'll be
doing something dreadful, you'll see, one of these days, with that
jealousy of hers! We mustn't let her get out on any account: she'd bring
the whole neighbourhood down upon us!"

Mademoiselle Saget went off in all haste. She reached the corner of the
Rue Pirouette just as the commissary of police was re-entering the side
passage of the Quenu-Gradelles' house. She grasped the situation at
once, and entered the shop with such glistening eyes that Lisa enjoined
silence by a gesture which called her attention to the presence of
Quenu, who was hanging up some pieces of salt pork. As soon as he had
returned to the kitchen, the old maid in a low voice described the
scenes that had just taken place at the Mehudins'. Lisa, as sh