"How much was it, Haidee?"
"Six francs."
"Mon Dieu! What imposition! Take it back, Haidee dear, and tell her that it is too dear and too fresh ... she must give us a pound of steak instead. We are too poor to buy meat we can't eat, you know, darling. Six francs! Did you pay for it?"
"Why, yes, of course I paid for it. You know I had the louis. Oh! blow Val, I don't care much about taking it back."
"But, Haidee, what's the use of talking like that ... we can't eat that bubbly lamb ... think of poor Brannie without dinner! I 'd go myself if I had any hair.... Tell her it 's ridiculous to have given you such meat. I remember now Hortense said that leg we had at Christmas and could n't eat was too freshly-killed--it was soft and tough at the same time, and all slithery when you tried to cut it. Don't you remember--it made you sick to look at it?"
Yes, Haidee remembered well enough, but she did n't like taking the shoulder back just the same. However, veuve Michel offered the moral support of her company, and she returned to Mother Durand. Half-an-hour later she was back at the Villa, the wretched shoulder of lamb still in her hands.
"She won't take it back. She says it 's a rule of the shop never to take back meat that has once gone out of it."
"But it was back within half-an-hour."
"Yes, I told her so--and you should have heard old veuve Michel going on at her, but she did n't care two sous. She said, 'Oh, yes, mademoiselle, carrying my lamb up and down the Terrasse in the hot sun--you think that improves the meat. Hein? Well, I don't think so. Dame, no!"
"Hot sun! I wish it were hot! They don't know what sun is in this odious climate," cried Val in wrath.