Lantier, my dear! He's hovering about on the watch; so I hastened here at once.
It frightened me on your account, you know." The laundress turned quite pale.

What could the wretched man want with her?
Coming, too, like that, just in the midst of the preparations for the feast.

She had never had any luck; she could not even be allowed to enjoy herself quietly.

But Virginie replied that she was very foolish to put herself out about it like that.

Why! If Lantier dared to follow her about, all she had to do was to call a policeman and have him locked up.
In the month since her husband had been appointed a policeman, Virginie had assumed rather lordly manners and talked of arresting everybody.