“Parbleu!” said the concierge, “you wouldn’t have seen anything very fine, I assure you.”
“Do you know that man?” asked Adeline quickly.
“I don’t know him, but I have seen him once before this morning; he looks to me like a scamp who is prowling round about the village to commit some deviltry. But he better not come back here, or I will set my dog on him!”
“And you don’t know what he wants in the village?”
“Faith! I don’t care. So long as he don’t come to the house, that’s all I ask.”
As they were in front of the house at that moment, and as the proprietor was waiting for them in his doorway, Adeline did not prolong her conversation with the concierge.
“Well! what do you think of these gardens?” the old man asked Adeline.
“Oh! they are very pretty, monsieur; and they will suit us, will they not, mamma?”
“Yes, yes, perhaps they will suit us.”
Since Mamma Germeuil had seen at the end of the garden that face which seemed to her of ill augury, she did not find so many attractions about the house, and seemed less delighted with its situation. But as her children were so intensely eager to purchase it, and as she realized how childish her own repugnance was, she did not oppose the conclusion of the bargain.