CHAPTER IV
ANNA OF ANN
My place at lunch was by the side of the Mater. I soon guessed that she was the wife of the patriarchal old man with whom I had been conversing. She had a delicious air of comfortable embonpoint, a clear skin, pink cheeks, and massive white hair. She was already seated when Ariston took me to her table, and, moving the empty chair a little to help me to my seat, she said, smiling:
"You are to sit here; I am dreadfully anxious to talk to you; where on earth have you come from now?"
I sat down by her, and answered:
"I wish you could explain it to me."
She looked me in the face and said: "You look just like the rest of us, except, that only our priests shave"; I looked in the direction of Chairo inquiringly. "Oh, yes, Chairo shaves, and a few others who want to be peculiar; but all of us simple folk——"
She chuckled a little, and then, bending near me, whispered in my ear: "I have been looking at your trousers!"
I made a deprecating gesture and smiled; she joined me, but in a laugh so brimming over with merriment and so contagious that very soon all the table had joined but without knowing why. When the Mater had finished laughing and the others with her, Ariston said: