"I recall to myself every morning, Madame Bathilde," he began, removing
a large blob of honey from the dimple in his pink chin, "how that angel
used to arise and prepare herself for her day's work. And of an economy!
Charcoal did for her four times what it will for me. And times are
hard!"
Bathilde sighed sympathetically. "My faith, yes; she was a wonderful
manager, _pauvre ange_. The milk is at your elbow, M. Desire----"
Outside in her tiny garden a bee boomed somnolently among the red and
yellow flowers, and somewhere near at hand a church bell jerked its
unmusical summons to prayer.
Madame Chalumeau's face, glossy and red-and-white like a Norman apple,
wore an expression of anxious expectation. Moreover, she had put on a
narrow lace collar and pinned it with a coral brooch. It was the fifth
of the month.
M. Desire ate his way through the generously laid meal with comfort and
deliberation, his small blue eyes, deeply embedded in pink flesh,
twinkling with ease.
As the clock struck half-past seven he laid his knife down and wiped his
beardless mouth.
"Bathilde," he said, "you are very kind to a poor afflicted mourner."
"Ah--Desire!"
She was a woman of much sense, and she did not try to be coy.
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