“Go!” she commanded, stamping her foot.
The Breton looked up wonderingly and his eyes smiled.
Presently he heard her open the shell-latticed window, then all was still. The larks and thrushes from their swaying bamboo cages fluttered and chirped questioningly. For there are silences that make birds as well as women inquisitive. They cocked their heads, chirped, and looked down unapprovingly upon the priest.
“What! I thought you had gone!”
The Breton turned his eyes expectantly to the crevices just above his head.
“Are you not going?” she demanded coldly.
The Breton rose from his chair, uncertain, but the light in his eyes untroubled.
“Sit down!”
The stillness that followed was not broken until after the feathery shadows of the bamboo had crept across the translucent shells of the latticed windows. Then the wife, very close to him, whispered:
“Priest.”