"It is all the same to me," he answered; "make room for me if you have none."
He ordered me to open the coach-house, but when he saw it crammed up with all sorts of things, he made a wry face.
"And up there?" he asked, pointing at the deserter's attic.
Good Heavens! the pears! the wine! I was trembling with fear, and was at a loss how to answer when the man altered his mind:
"I would rather have a bedroom to myself," and so saying he opened Antoinette's door.
"That will do," said the person, and waving back the silently waiting soldiers he kept but two of them with him. We began to remove a few things from the room, which Antoinette had always kept for herself, and before the sergeant's taunting eyes we carried away clothes, books, and knick-knacks. The door we had left ajar was suddenly thrown open, and a little coxcomb of an officer came in and cried out in a cheerful tone:
"Oh! oh! Two at a time!"
That was more than we could stand, and leaving blankets and coverlets we ran away.
At the corner of the house a brutal arm stopped me, and a soldier I hardly saw in the night muttered something I did not understand about money—five francs. I tried to break loose from the man's hold, and answered at random we were no shopkeepers and sold nothing.
"If you are busy," he said, "another lady would do."