“There’s no one on the line,” she said, in a small, formal, courteous voice.
Devon tried to speak, failed, tried again.
“It was a mistake?”
“Oh, no.” She smiled forgivingly at him. “It wasn’t a mistake; it was Derry. He wanted to explain to me, but I couldn’t hear. It was my fault, you see—I couldn’t hear.”
She stood quite still, stroking the small dark thing against her heart with light and gentle fingers, and then, with an infinitely caressing gesture, she bent her head to it—closer, closer, still smiling a little, as though against her curved lips she heard the echo of a far-off voice.
PHILIP THE GAY
Fairfax Carter sat up very straight in the great carved walnut bed, and plaintively inspected the breakfast tray which the red-cheeked Norman maiden had just deposited beside her. Those eternal little hard rolls—the black bowl of coffee beneath whose steaming fragrance lurked the treacherous chicory—the jug of hot thin milk—the small brown jar of pale honey—she bestowed a rebellious scowl on the entire collection. She felt suddenly, frantically homesick for a bubbling percolator, for thick yellow cream and feathery biscuits, for chilled crimson berries with powdered mounds of sugar. Marie Léontine, briskly oblivious, was coaxing the very small fire in the very large chimney into dancing animation.
“V’la!” she announced triumphantly, with all the hearty deference that is the common gift of the French servant. “Beau matin, p’tite dame!”
“Oui,” conceded the “small lady” grudgingly. She shivered apprehensively as Marie Léontine shoved the copper water jug closer to the flames, and trotted smiling from the room. Ugh! How in the world could any nation hope to keep clean and warm with three sticks of wood and four teaspoonfuls of water? She remembered another country—a bright and blessed country—where water rushed hot and joyous from glittering faucets into great shining tubs—where warmed and fleecy towels hung waiting to fold you hospitably close. She shivered again, forlornly, scanning the stretch of distance across the bare floor to the hook where the meagre towel hung limp and forbidding. “La douce France!” Ha! She pulled the tray toward her, still scowling.