CHAPTER XXIV
THAT GIRL
There was a scraping of wooden chair-legs on the tiled kitchen floor as I came in, and the men rose.
Mrs. Waters introduced “Our friend Monsieur Charrier and his daughter”—and the stout gentleman, who wore pale-hued boots shaped like the blades of oars, bowed until I could see the rolls of fat beneath his collar behind, then shot at me out of eyes like two black currants a glance that made me feel utterly disapproved-of and “found wanting.” The girl gave me a look less frankly measuring, while the whitest teeth in the world flashed in her little face, oval and smoothly olive as the shell of one of those eggs on the table.
She was very lovely....
She held out her hand and gave mine the violent shake that foreigners seem to think so truly English; and then I slipped into the empty place next to Blanche, feeling thankful for the tea which Mrs. Waters handed to me in a large cup decorated with a group of Welsh women in the costume never seen except on china.
I drank it in a kind of thirsty dream; I couldn’t have talked to save anyone’s life just then; but the talk was buzzing on all around.
“—planned to go to-morrow; but shall you be here?”
“—since we find ourselves in such charming neighbourhood, we could prolong our sojourn——”