"How long have you been here?" she said in a curt, harsh voice.
Michel made a gesture as if to say, "I leave Jean Oullier to reply."
"Monsieur le baron and I have been talking here for the last half hour or more."
Bertha looked fixedly at the old Vendéan.
"That is singular!" she said.
"Why singular?" asked Jean Oullier, fixing his own eyes steadily upon her.
"Because," said Bertha, addressing Michel and not Jean Oullier. "because I thought I heard you talking with my sister at her window, and saw you climbing down the mill-wheel which you had mounted to reach her."
"Monsieur le baron doesn't look as if he had just performed such an acrobatic feat," said Jean Oullier, sarcastically.
"Then who do you suppose it was, Jean?" said Bertha, stamping her foot impatiently.
"Oh, some of those drunkards over there, who were playing a trick."