"An Englishman gentleman—and his wife."
"They may be Americans. We hardly know yet." Ingersoll was striving bravely to recover his poise. Those few words told Yvonne that he wished their secret to remain hidden from all others—for the present, at any rate.
"Dieu merci! You can talk, then?" said Mère Pitou tartly. "Were they coming to Pont Aven? Are they known here?"
"No. Their name is Carmac. They have never been here, I believe. They were making for Lorient; but their yacht broke down and drove on the reef. Had it not been for Peridot we could not have saved a soul on board."
"Oh, he's a good sailor—I'll say that for him. His poor old mother was there on the quay, screeching like an owl. She lost her man at sea, you know. I hate the sea. I'll skin Barbe if she ever so much as looks at a fisherman. Do you hear that, Madeleine?"
"Yes, Madame. But you can't skin every fisherman who looks at Barbe."
"Wait till I catch one at it! He'll find a shark in his nets that day. Hurry now, you, and help Barbe to get those baths ready! I filled the kettle before I came out, and lifted the wheat off, and as I shoved in the damper of the oven the fowls shouldn't have taken much harm."
"Peridot will surely come soon," Madeleine ventured to say.
Mère Pitou, having made sufficient concession to her guests' feelings by that revised estimate of the condition of the eatables, was moved to withering sarcasm.
"Why do you think that matters to me?" she cried.