“Surely,” I said, “the agent has written to you? I understood from him that you would expect me at this hour to-day.”
“Oh yes,” the man admitted, “we were expecting you.” But he made no motion to advance matters. He exchanged another anxious glance with his wife. She gave her head a sort of helpless nod, and looked down.
“You see, Monsieur,” the man began, as if he were about to elucidate the situation, “you see—” But then he faltered, frowning at the air, as one at a loss for words.
“The house is already let, perhaps?” suggested I.
“No, the house is not let,” said he.
“You had better go and fetch the key,” his wife said at last, in a dreary way, still looking down.
He trudged heavily back to the farm-house. While he was gone we stood by the door in silence, the woman always nervously working the fingers of her clasped hands. I tried, indeed, to make a little conversation: I ventured something about the excellence of the site, the beauty of the view. She replied with a murmur of assent, civilly but wearily; and I did not feel encouraged to persist.
By-and-by her husband rejoined us, with the key; and they began silently to lead me through the house.
There were two pretty drawing-rooms on the ground floor, a pretty dining-room, and a delightful kitchen, with a broad hearth of polished red bricks, a tiled chimney, and shining copper pots and pans. The drawing-rooms and the dining-room were pleasantly furnished in a light French fashion, and their windows opened to the sun and to the fragrance and greenery of the garden. I expressed a good deal of admiration; whereupon, little by little, the manner of my conductors changed. From constrained, depressed, it became responsive; even, in the end, effusive. They met my exclamations with smiles, my inquiries with voluble eager answers. But it remained an agitated manner, the manner of people who were shaken by an emotion. Their old hands trembled as they opened the doors for me or drew up the blinds; their voices trembled. There was something painful in their very smiles, as if these were but momentary ripples on the surface of a trouble.
“Ah,” I said to myself, “they are hard-pressed for money. They have put their whole capital into this house, very likely. They are excited by the prospect of securing a tenant.”