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‘And I am clearly on the other side!’ cried Madame Troqueville hotly, ‘I would have every inch of the hard wood bedecked with flowers!’

‘Well, well, Marie, life has dealt hardly with you,’ said Madame Pilou, throwing a menacing look at Monsieur Troqueville, ‘but life and I have ever been good friends; and the cause may be that we are not unlike one to the other, both strong and tough, and with little tomfoolery about us.’ Madame Troqueville gazed straight in front of her, her eyes for the moment as chill as Madeleine’s. This was more than she could stand, she, the daughter of an eminent judge, to be pitied by this coarse old widow of an attorney.

‘Maybe the reason you have found life not unkind is because you are not like the dog in the fable,’ said Madeleine shyly, ‘who lost the substance out of greediness to possess the shadow.’

Madame Pilou was delighted. Any reference to Æsop’s fables was sure to please her, for it brought her the rare satisfaction of recognising a literary allusion.