"Nothing, Stick, nothing. But I believe I've seen the prettiest girl in the world right here in this two-by-four town."
Stick glanced over his shoulder, then shrugged:
"She's ornamental, only she's got a sad on."
But Burley trudged on with his leather hold-all, muttering to himself something about the prettiest girl in the world.
The "prettiest girl in the world" continued her way unconscious of the encomiums of John Burley and the critique of Sticky Smith. Her way, however, seemed to be the way of Burley and his two companions, for she crossed the sunny street and entered the White Doe by the arched door and tunnel-like passage.
Unlike them, however, she turned to the right in the stone corridor, opened a low wooden door, crossed the inn parlour, ascended a short stairway, and entered a bedroom.
Here, standing before a mirror, she unpinned her straw hat, smoothed her dark hair, resting her eyes pensively for a few moments on her reflected face. Then she sauntered listlessly about the little room in performance of those trivial, aimless offices,[pg 170] entirely feminine, such as opening all the drawers in her clothes-press, smoothing out various frilly objects and fabrics, investigating a little gilded box and thoughtfully inspecting its contents, which consisted of hair-pins. Fussing here, lingering there, loitering by her bird-cage, where a canary cheeped its greeting and hopped and hopped; bending over a cluster of white phlox in a glass of water to inhale the old-fashioned perfume, she finally tied on a fresh apron and walked slowly out to the ancient, vaulted kitchen.
An old peasant woman was cooking, while a young one washed dishes.
"Are the American gentlemen still at table, Julie?" she inquired.
"Mademoiselle Maryette, they are devouring everything in the house!" exclaimed old Julie, flinging both hands toward heaven. "Tenez, mamzelle, I have heard of eating in ancient days, I have read of Gargantua, I have been told of banquets, of feasting, of appetites! But there is one American in there! Mamzelle Maryette, if I should swear to you that he is on his third chicken and[pg 171] that a row of six pint bottles of '93 Margaux stand empty on the cloth at his elbow, I should do no penance for untruthfulness. Tenez, Mamzelle Maryette, regardez un peu par l'oubliette—" And old Julie slid open the wooden shutter on the crack and Maryette bent forward and surveyed the dining room outside.