‘It will be really too beautiful.’
La Teuse, who knelt near by in ecstasy, started again.
‘Dear me!’ she said, ‘I had quite forgotten you were there. You really ought to cough before you speak. You have a voice that comes on one so suddenly that one might think it was a voice from the grave.’
She rose up and drew back a little the better to admire the Abbé’s work.
‘Why too beautiful?’ she asked. ‘Nothing can be too beautiful when it is done for the Almighty. If his reverence had only had some gold, he would have done it with gold, I’m sure.’
When the priest had finished, she hastened to change the altar-cloth, taking the greatest care not to smudge the beading. Then she arranged the cross, the candlesticks, and the vases symmetrically. Abbé Mouret had gone to lean against the wooden screen which separated the choir from the nave, by the side of Brother Archangias. Not a word passed between them. Their eyes were fixed upon the silver crucifix, which, in the increasing gloom, still cast some glimmer of light on the feet and the left side and the right temple of the big Christ. When La Teuse had finished, she came down towards them, triumphantly.
‘Doesn’t it look lovely?’ she asked. ‘Just you see what a crowd there will be at mass to-morrow! Those heathens will only come to God’s house when they think He is well-to-do. Now, Monsieur le Curé, we must do as much for the Blessed Virgin’s altar.’
‘Waste of money!’ growled Brother Archangias.
But La Teuse flew into a tantrum; and, as Abbé Mouret remained silent, she led them both before the altar of the Virgin, pushing them and dragging them by their cassocks.
‘Just look at it,’ said she; ‘it is too shabby for anything, now that the high altar is so smart. It looks as though it had never been painted at all. However much I may rub it of a morning, the dust sticks to it. It is quite black; it is filthy. Do you know what people will say about you, your reverence? They will say that you care nothing for the Blessed Virgin; that’s what they’ll say.’