After a minute or two of conversation,
they generally find out that I am not a young widow, but that
doesn't make any difference--they go on just the same."
"Who are the men?" asked the deputy. "Clerks? Traveling
salesmen?"
"Not much," she responded. "I keep a lookout for gentlemen--like
yourself."
"They SAY they are gentlemen," he suggested.
"Sometimes I can see it," was the response. "Sometimes they wear
orders. It's funny--if they have on a ribbon when you first
notice them, they follow you, and presto--the ribbon is gone! I
always laugh over that. I've watched them in the glass of the
shop windows. They try to look unconcerned, but as they walk
along they snap out the ribbon with their thumb--as one shells
little peas, you know."
She paused; then, as no one joined in her laugh, she continued,
"Well, at last the police got after me, That's a story that I've
never been able to understand. Those filthy men gave me a nasty
disease, and then I was to be shut in prison for it! That was a
little too much, it seems to me."
"Well," said the doctor, grimly, "you revenged yourself on them--
from what you have told me."
The other laughed. "Oh, yes," she said. "I had my innings."
She turned to Monsieur Loches. "You want me to tell you that?
Well, just on the very day I learned that the police were after
me, I was coming home furious, naturally. It was on the
Boulevard St. Denis, if you know the place--and whom do you think
I met? My old master--the one who got me into trouble, you know.
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