And then, as if Madame Wachner had seen straight into her mind, the old woman said significantly. "As to our money, I will show you where we keep it. Come into my bed-room; perhaps you will take off your hat there; then we shall be what English people call 'cosy.'"
Madame Wachner led the way again into the short passage, and so into a large bed-room, which looked, like the kitchen, on to the back garden.
After the kitchen, this bed-room struck Sylvia as being the pleasantest room in the Châlet des Muguets, and that although, like the dining-room and drawing-room, it was extraordinarily bare.
There was no chest of drawers, no dressing-table, no cupboard to be seen. Madame Wachner's clothes hung on pegs behind the door, and there was a large brass-bound trunk in a corner of the room.
But the broad, low bed looked very comfortable, and there was a bath-room next door.
Madame Wachner showed her guest the bath-room with great pride.
"This is the 'English comfortable,'" she said, using the quaint phrase the French have invented to express the acme of domestic luxury. "My 'usband will never allow me to take a 'ouse that has no bath-room. 'E is very clean about 'imself"—she spoke as if it was a fact to be proud of, and Sylvia could not help smiling.
"I suppose there are still many French houses without a bath-room," she said.
"Yes," said Madame Wachner quickly, "the French are not a clean people,"—she shook her head scornfully.
"I suppose you keep your money in that box?" said Sylvia, looking at the brass-bound trunk.