They all sighed:
“Yes,” said they—“they knew how to live.”
The bell rang and clinked and swung, hoarsely complaining, over the bed in the little dark den of the concierge; and Madame Hodendouche, rousing sulkily, sat up amongst her bedclothes and pulled the string viciously that drew the bolt of the postern in the great gate outside, muttering a snuffling curse on the lateness of the night.
“Ring—ring—ring, thou pestilence!” she scolded savagely.
The gate outside shut with a slam, feet tramped past, a voice called, and all was silence again.
“Hodendouche,” she said sulkily to her snoring bedfellow—“the Englishman does not give madame too much of his company in these days—I had thought them lovers, but they are indeed married. He is ever more late now.”
She settled her fat little body down amongst the bedclothes:
“Yes, thou mayest well snore, Hodendouche, thou lazy hog—but I kept the Englishman ringing till he broke even thy sleep, and a good cooling will do the fine fellow no ill. He has rung off and on this good half-hour—I only fear he may have taken some varnish off the gate with his pestiferous kickings and knockings....”
In the smoky twilight Noll softly entered the shadows of the room, and as he gently closed the door, he heard Betty toss restlessly in troubled sleep.
He went and sat down upon the side of the bed: