She sat back and stared about her, while Frau Krause, recognising that she had met her match in this sharp-tongued young lady, curbed her temper, and launched out into the history of a former lodger.
It was a dingy room, long and narrow, with a single window. Against the door that led into an adjoining room, stood a high-backed, uninviting sofa, with a table in front of it. Between this and the window was the writing-bureau, a flat, man-high piece of furniture, with drawers and pigeon-holes, and a broad flap that let down for writing purposes. Against the opposite wall stood the neglected piano, and, towards the door, on both sides, were huddled bed, washstand, and the iron stove. Everything was of an extreme shabbiness: the stuffing was showing through holes in the sofa, the strips of carpet were worn threadbare. A couple of photographs and a few books were ranged in line on the bureau—that was all that had been done towards giving the place a homely air. It was like a room that had never properly been lived in.
While Madeleine sat thinking this, the sound of a key was heard in the front door, and Frau. Krause, interrupted in her story, had just time to tap Madeleine on the arm, exclaim: "Here he is!" and dart out of the room. Not so promptly, however, but what Maurice saw where she came from. Madeleine heard them bandying words in the passage.
The door of the room was flung open, and Maurice, entering hotly, threw his hat on the table. He did not perceive his visitor till it was too late.
"Madeleine! You here!" he exclaimed in surprise and embarrassment. "I beg your pardon. I didn't see you," and he made haste to recover his hat.
"Yes, don't faint, it's I, Maurice.—But what's the matter? Why are you so angry with the person? Does she pry on you?"
"Pry!" he echoed, and his colour deepened. "Pry's not the word for it. She ransacks everything I have. I never come home but what I find she has overhauled something, though I've forbidden her to enter the room."
"Why don't you—or rather, why didn't you move? It's not much of a place, I'm sure."
"Move?" he repeated, in the same tone as before, and, as he spoke, he looked incredulously at Madeleine. He had hung his coat and hat on a peg, and now came forward to the table. "Move?" he said once again, and prolonged the word as though the channel of thought it opened up was new to him.
"Good gracious, yes!—If one's not satisfied with one's rooms, one moves, that's all. There's nothing strange about it."