For she fully understood that only a deep, real love could so vanquish the lower part of his nature as to let the nobler triumph as it had of late.
"I adore you, my great man," she said, very low, and their eyes met.
Then they crossed the street and he, leaning over the closed half of the door in the wall, opened it and they went in.
It was nine o'clock, and the old people had had their supper. Brigit who had, thinking of their great age, rather expected to find them more or less mummy-like, sitting in comfortable chairs tended by a middle-aged relation, was somewhat amused to find them squabbling fiercely over a game of dominoes, each with a glass of cider at hand.
"Mon père—la voici," announced Joyselle, with a kind of simple pomposity eminently fitted to the occasion.
Old Joyselle finished his act of adding a domino to the long line before him and then looked up. He was a rather small, bent old man, with quantities of rough, curly grey hair and a petulant expression.
"Ugh!" he said rudely.
"Shake hands with him, Brigit," suggested Victor pulling his moustache to suppress a smile. Brigit held out her hand.
"I am very glad to meet you," she said in French.
The old man stared. Then he smiled, showing one snow-white tooth. "Tu parles," he murmured. Then he went back to his game.