Rigou. "She is not yet out of date, Madame Sarcus--"

"Oh! Monsieur Rigou," said Madame Soudry, in a mincing tone, "are
women ever out of date?"

"You may be right about Madame Sarcus; she doesn't paint before the
glass," retorted Rigou, who was always disgusted by the exhibition of
the Cochet's ancient charms.

Madame Soudry, who thought she used only a "suspicion" of rouge, did
not perceive the sarcasm and hastened to say:--

"Is it possible that women paint?"

"Now, Lupin," said Rigou, without replying to this naivete, "go over
to Gaubertin's to-morrow morning. Tell him that my fellow-mayor and I"
(striking Soudry on the thigh) "will break bread with him at breakfast
somewhere about midday. Tell him everything, so that we may all have
thought it over before we meet, for now's the time to make an end of
that damned Shopman. As I drove over here I came to the conclusion it
would be best to get up a quarrel between the courts and him, so that
the Keeper of the Seals would be wary of making the changes he may ask
in their members."

"Bravo for the son of the Church!" cried Lupin, slapping Rigou on the
shoulder.

Madame Soudry was here struck by an idea which could come only to a
former waiting-maid of an Opera divinity.