She told him all about
the sad incident, repeated the same details twenty times over, picked
up the bloodstained scissors in order to imitate Zizi's gesture when he
stabbed himself. And above all she nursed the idea of proving her own
innocence.
"Look you here, dearie, is it my fault? If you were the judge would you
condemn me? I certainly didn't tell Philippe to meddle with the till
any more than I urged that wretched boy to kill himself. I've been most
unfortunate throughout it all. They come and do stupid things in my
place; they make me miserable; they treat me like a hussy."
And she burst into tears. A fit of nervous expansiveness rendered her
soft and doleful, and her immense distress melted her utterly.
"And you, too, look as if you weren't satisfied. Now do just ask Zoe if
I'm at all mixed up in it. Zoe, do speak: explain to Monsieur--"
The lady's maid, having brought a towel and a basin of water out of
the dressing room, had for some moments past been rubbing the carpet in
order to remove the bloodstains before they dried.
"Oh, monsieur," she declared, "Madame is utterly miserable!"
Muffat was still stupefied; the tragedy had frozen him, and his
imagination was full of the mother weeping for her sons.
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