He did not insist, but turned sharply to the left, and the next instant I stood before the threshold of a low stone house with a new tiled roof. A squat, snug house, the eaves of whose steep gabled roof came down well over its two stories, like the snuffer on a candle. He stepped to the threshold, felt about the door as if in search for a latch, and rapped three times with the flat of his hand. Then he called softly:
"Léa!"
"C'est toi?" came in answer, and a small hand cautiously opened a heavy overhead shutter, back of which a shaded lamp was burning.
"Yes, it is all right, it is I," said he. "Come down! I have a surprise for you. I have captured an American."
There came the sound of tripping feet, the quick drawing of a heavy bolt, and the door opened.
My little lady of the Pré Catelan!
Not in a tea-gown from the Rue de la Paix—nothing of that kind whatever; not a ruffle, not a jewel—but clothed in the well-worn garment of a fisher girl of the coast—a coarse homespun chemise of linen, open at the throat, and a still coarser petticoat of blue, faded by the salt sea—a fisher girl's petticoat that stopped at her knees, showing her trim bare legs and the white insteps of her little feet, incased in a pair of heelless felt slippers.
For the second time I was treated to a surprise. Really, Pont du Sable was not so dead a village after all.
Emile was wrong. She was one of my village people.