“Sit down! Rest yourself!” M. Raindal said calmly.
“No, no! It is passed! I feel better!”
She unhooked her cape and went to kiss her husband, then her daughter. Her cheeks carried the frost of the wind outside; they were cold as a window pane; she was still panting as she bent over each of them.
“Where have you been, to return so late?” M. Raindal inquired, without lifting his eyes from his work.
She protested.
“So late!... But it is not ‘so late’!... It is not more than 5.15.... I went to Guerbois, to order a pie for to-night.... Cyprie coming to dinner, is he?”
“Oh, yes ... Cyprie coming.”
She did not dwell on the matter. She was choking with a new fear; she had almost sinned by telling an untruth. She poked the red lumps of coke and lowered the wick of the smoking lamp. Then, feeling the weight of the silence which was pregnant with irony and with suspicion perhaps, she left the room, her cheeks now suddenly aflame, her breast heavy with sighs.
Thérèse and her father simultaneously raised their heads and exchanged a knowing smile.
“Did you hear that?... her pie?...”