Page 117 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

I took her there every day until I had money again. My in-
telligence had saved us.
‘Everything went well until a year later. I was with
Yvonne again, and one day we were walking down the Bou-
levard Port Royal, near the barracks. Suddenly Yvonne’s
mouth fell open, and she began turning red and white, and
red again.
‘’MON DIEU!’ she cried, ‘look at that who is coming! It
is the nurse who was in charge at the maternity hospital. I
am ruined!’
‘’Quick!’ I said, ‘run!’ But it was too late. The nurse had
recognized Yvonne, and she came straight up to us, smil-
ing. She was a big fat woman with a gold pince-nez and red
cheeks like the cheeks of an apple. A motherly, interfering
kind of woman.
‘’I hope you are well, MA PETITE?’ she said kindly. ‘And
your baby, is he well too? Was it a boy, as you were hoping?’
‘Yvonne had begun trembling so hard that I had to grip
her arm. ‘No,’ she said at last.
‘’Ah, then, EVIDEMMENT, it was a girl?’
‘Thereupon Yvonne, the idiot, lost her head completely.
‘No,’ she actually said again!
‘The nurse was taken aback. ‘COMMENT!’ she ex-
claimed, ‘neither a boy nor a girl! But how can that be?’
‘Figure to yourselves, MESSIEURS ET DAMES, it was
a dangerous moment. Yvonne had turned the colour of a
beetroot and she looked ready to burst into tears; another
second and she would have confessed everything. Heaven
knows what might have happened. But as for me, I had kept

11 Down and Out in Paris and London