She was unpicking the lining of a dress, and the strips were scattered around her. Madame Bovary senior was plying her scissor without looking up, and Charles, in his list slippers and his old brown surtout that he used as a dressing-gown, sat with both hands in his pockets, and did not speak either; near them Berthe, in a little white pinafore, was raking sand in the walks with her spade. Suddenly she saw Monsieur Lheureux, the linendraper, come in through the gate.

He came to offer his services “under the sad circumstances.” Emma answered that she thought she could do without. The shopkeeper was not to be beaten.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but I should like to have a private talk with you.” Then in a low voice, “It’s about that affair⁠—you know.”

Charles crimsoned to his ears. “Oh, yes! certainly.” And in his confusion, turning to his wife, “Couldn’t you, my darling?”