"I suppose," said Adèle, "those were the other people."
"Who were the other people?" I demanded.
"The two men standing in the hall as we came downstairs."
"I never saw them," said I. "But if you mean that one of them was the fellow who's after the house, I fancy you're wrong, because the agent told me he'd gone to Bordeaux."
"Well, I don't know who they were, then," replied my wife. "They were talking to the caretaker. I saw them through the banisters. By the time we'd got down, they'd disappeared. Any way, it doesn't matter. Only, if it was them, it looks as if they were thinking pretty seriously about it. You don't go to see a house four times out of curiosity."
"You mean," said Berry, "that if we're fools enough to take it, we'd better get a move on."
"Exactly. Let's go and have tea at Bouzom's, and thrash it out there."
No one of us, I imagine, will ever forget that tea.
Crowded about a table intended to accommodate four, we alternately disputed and insulted one another for the better part of two hours. Not once, but twice of her agitation my sister replenished the teapot with Jill's chocolate, and twice fresh tea had to be brought. Berry burned his mouth and dropped an apricot tartlet on to his shoe. Until my disgust was excited by a nauseous taste, I continued to drink from a cup in which Jonah had extinguished a cigarette.
Finally Berry pushed back his chair and looked at his watch.