'Well, that just fits in with what I have been saying!' cried Mouret, in a louder voice. 'The way that Bourrette goes on is quite incredible. He certainly saw the apples when he came to look at the rooms, sir, for he took up one of them and remarked that he had rarely seen such fine fruit. He said that everything seemed quite suitable, that the rooms were all that was necessary, and he took them.'
Abbé Faujas was no longer listening to Mouret; his cheeks were flushed with anger. He turned round and stammered in a broken voice:
'Do you hear, mother? There is no furniture.'
The old lady, with her thin black shawl drawn tightly round her, had just been inspecting the ground-floor, stepping furtively hither and thither, but without once putting down her basket. She had gone to the door of the kitchen and had scrutinised the four walls there, and then, standing on the steps that overlooked the terrace, she had taken in all the garden at one long, searching glance. But it was the dining-room that seemed more especially to interest her, and she was now again standing in front of the table laid for dinner, watching the steam of the soup rise, when her son repeated:
'Do you hear, mother? We shall have to go to the hotel.'
She raised her head without making any reply; but the expression of her whole face seemed to indicate a settled determination to remain in that house, with whose every corner she had already made herself acquainted. She shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly, and again her wandering eyes strayed from the kitchen to the garden and then from the garden to the dining-room.
Mouret, however, was growing impatient. As he saw that neither the mother nor her son seemed to make up their minds to leave the place, he said:
'We have no beds, unfortunately. True, there is, in the loft, a folding-bedstead, which perhaps, at a pinch, madame might make do until to-morrow. But I really don't know how Monsieur l'Abbé is to manage to sleep.'
Then at last Madame Faujas opened her lips. She spoke in a curt and somewhat hoarse voice:
'My son will take the folding-bedstead. A mattress on the floor, in a corner, will be quite sufficient for me.'