“That’s just it,” said he, winking his wicked eye.
“So you won’t tell us about it?”
“Oh, you will know it soon enough.”
“It’s all cry and no wool with you, you old humbug!”
On the threshold the rustic turned round and delivered himself of a platitude with a sarcastic smile: “Live and learn! Well, well, what will the old woman do?”
His feet falling lightly in the snow he passed behind Paule, who was still leaning on the veranda rail.
“Good evening, miss. Bear up! You never know who’s alive or who’s dead.”
The girl started again, more at this voice heard unexpectedly behind her back than at the words, whose meaning she did not understand. She came back to the kitchen with a vague fear mingled with her uneasiness.
“Make us some nice soup, Marie, and very hot. It is freezing hard.” And cheered by the cosy hearth she added, “That Baron almost frightened me.”
The servant snorted. “A good-for-nothing like that, with a long tongue! I don’t want to see him round here any more. Your father was a good Samaritan when he picked up that fish. And he has the evil eye. We must take care. If the soup is burned, it will be all his fault. I don’t know what story he had heard in the town, but he had a long face and was watching us as a cat watches a rat.”