I was beginning to be amused and resumed:
“All right, my girl, all right. You are all of you less stupid than one would imagine, all the same. And how old is he now, Florentin?”
She replied:
“He is now twelve. He will make his first communion in the spring.”
“That is splendid. And since then you have carried on your business conscientiously?”
She sighed in a resigned manner.
“I must do what I can.”
But a loud noise just then coming from the room itself made me start up with a bound. It sounded like some one falling and picking themselves up again by feeling along the wall with their hands.
I had seized the candle and was looking about me, terrified and furious. She had risen also and was trying to hold me back to stop me, murmuring:
“That's nothing, my dear, I assure you it's nothing.”