“Now, if you please, Monsieur, we will go upstairs, and see the bedrooms,” the old man said.
The bedrooms were airy, cheerful rooms, gaily papered, with chintz curtains and the usual French bedroom furniture. One of them exhibited signs of being actually lived in; there were things about it, personal things, a woman’s things. It was the last room we visited, a front room, looking off to the sea. There were combs and brushes on the toilet-table; there were pens, an inkstand, and a portfolio on the writing-desk; there were books in the bookcase. Framed photographs stood on the mantelpiece. In the closet dresses were suspended, and shoes and slippers were primly ranged on the floor. The bed was covered with a counterpane of blue silk; a crucifix hung on the wall above it; beside it there was a prie-dieu, with a little porcelain holy-water vase.
“Oh,” I exclaimed, turning to Monsieur and Madame Leroux, “this room is occupied?”
Madame Leroux did not appear to hear me. Her eyes were fixed in a dull stare before her, her lips were parted slightly. She looked tired, as if she would be glad when our tour through the house was finished. Monsieur Leroux threw his hand up towards the ceiling in an odd gesture, and said, “No, the room is not occupied at present.”
We went back downstairs, and concluded an agreement. I was to take the house for the summer. Madame Leroux would cook for me. Monsieur Leroux would drive into Dieppe on Wednesday to fetch me and my luggage out.
On Wednesday we had been driving for something like half an hour without speaking, when all at once Leroux said to me, “That room, Monsieur, the room you thought was occupied——”
“Yes?” I questioned, as he paused.
“I have a proposition to make,” said he. He spoke, as it seemed to me, half shyly, half doggedly, gazing the while at the ears of his horse.
“What is it?” I asked.