She knew that her husband must have sold himself dearly, but she was burning to know the nature of the bargain.

One evening, when they had gone to bed, finding Pierre in a good humour, she brought the conversation round to the discomforts of their poverty.
"It's quite time to put an end to this," she said.

"We have been ruining ourselves in oil and fuel since those gentlemen have been coming here.
And who will pay the reckoning?
Nobody perhaps." Her husband fell into the trap, and smiled with complacent superiority.
"Patience," said he.

And with an air of shrewdness he looked into his wife's eyes and added: "Would you be glad to be the wife of a receiver of taxes ?" Felicite's face flushed with a joyous glow.

She sat up in bed and clapped her old withered little hands like a child.
"Really ?" she stammered.