“John,” thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted, and her eyes looked at the stranger. “Stay long enough, and I shall knit ‘barsad’ before you go.”
“You have a husband, madame?”
“I have.”
“Children?”
“No children.”
“Business seems bad?”
“Business is very bad; the people are so poor.”
“Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people! So oppressed, too—as you say.”
“As you say,” madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting an extra something into his name that boded him no good.
“Pardon me; certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think so. Of course.”