Tears of shame and misery had wetted the old ladies' hired pillows, as
under the threat of a provincial visitation they had tossed sleepless
in similar solicitude, and their wigs, had they not been wigs, would
have turned grey of themselves. Their only consolation had been that
neither outdid the other, and so long as each saw the other's brown
wig, they had refrained from facing the dread possibility of having to
sell off their jewellery in a desperate effort of emulation. Gradually
Madame Dépine had grown to wear her wig with vindictive endurance, and
Madame Valière to wear hers with gentle resignation. And now, here
was Madame la Propriétaire, a woman five years younger and ten years
better preserved, putting them both to the public blush, drawing the
hotel's attention to what the hotel might have overlooked, in its long
habituation to their surmounting brownness.

More morbidly conscious than ever of a young head on old shoulders,
the old ladies no longer paused at the bureau to exchange the news
with Madame or even with her black-haired bookkeeping daughter. No
more lounging against the newel under the carved torch-bearer, while
the journalist of the fourth floor spat at the Dreyfusites, and the
poet of the _entresol_ threw versified vitriol at perfidious Albion.
For the first time, too--losing their channel of communication--they
grew out of touch with each other's microscopic affairs, and their
mutual detestation increased with their resentful ignorance. And so,
shrinking and silent, and protected as far as possible by their big
bonnets, the squat Madame Dépine and the skinny Madame Valière toiled
up and down the dark, fusty stairs of the Hôtel des Tourterelles,
often brushing against each other, yet sundered by icy infinities. And
the endurance on Madame Dépine's round face became more vindictive,
and gentler grew the resignation on the angular visage of Madame
Valière.