Félicité would have favored his suit if there had been the ghost of a chance for him, but she knew there was not.
Mme. Cléry looked coldly on it. Needless to say, neither M. Dalibouze nor his cruel-hearted lady-love had ever made a confidante of the _femme de ménage_; but she often remarked to her mistresses when they ventured an opinion on anything connected with her special department, "Je ne suis pas née d'hier," an assertion which, strange to say, even the rebellious Aline had never attempted to gainsay. Mme. Cléry was not, indeed, born yesterday, moreover she was a Frenchwoman, and a particularly wide-awake one, and from the first evening that she saw Aline sugaring M. Dalibouze's tea, dropping in lump after lump in that reckless way, while the little man held his cup and beamed at her through his spectacles as if he meant to stand there for ever simpering, "Merci encore!"--it occurred to Mme. Cléry when she saw this that there was more in it than tea-making. Of course it was natural and proper that a young woman, especially an orphan, should think of getting married, but it was right and proper that her friends should think of it too, and see that she married the proper person. Now, on the face of it, M. Dalibouze could not be the proper person. Nevertheless, Mme. Cléry waited till the suspicion that M. Dalibouze had settled it in his own mind that he was that man took the shape of a conviction before she considered it her duty to interfere.
By interfering Mme. Cléry meant going _aux renseignements_. Nobody ever got true _renseignements_, especially when there was a marriage in question, except people like her; ladies and gentlemen never get behind the scenes with each other, or, if they do, they never tell what they see there. They are very sweet and smiling when they meet in the salon, and nobody guesses that madame has rated her _femme de chambre_ for not putting the flowers in her hair exactly to her fancy, or that monsieur has flung a boot at his valet for giving him his shaving-water too hot or too cold. If you want the truth, you must get it by the back-stairs. This was Mme. Cléry's belief, and, acting upon it, she went to M. Dalibouze's _concierge_ in the Rue Jean Beauvais to consult him confidentially about his _locataire_.