The little courtyard was used to hang out on wire cords embroidered handkerchiefs, collarets, capes, cuffs, frilled shirts, cravats, laces, embroidered dresses,--in short, all the fine linen of the best families of the town.
The chevalier assumed to know from the number of her capes in the wash how the love-affairs of the wife of the prefect were going on.

Though he guessed much from observations of this kind, the chevalier was discretion itself; he was never betrayed into an epigram (he had plenty of wit) which might have closed to him an agreeable salon.

You are therefore to consider Monsieur de Valois as a man of superior manners, whose talents, like those of many others, were lost in a narrow sphere.
Only--for, after all, he was a man--he permitted himself certain penetrating glances which could make some women tremble; although they all loved him heartily as soon as they discovered the depth of his discretion and the sympathy that he felt for their little weaknesses.
The head woman, Madame Lardot's factotum, an old maid of forty-six, hideous to behold, lived on the opposite side of the passage to the chevalier.

Above them were the attics where the linen was dried in winter.

Each apartment had two rooms,--one lighted from the street, the other from the courtyard.