"He really is a dreadful type," she said. "The perfume of Paris gutters clings to him. Monsieur Warner had better get rid of him before articles begin to be missed."
"Oh, well," remarked Warner, "he'll probably scuttle away like a scared rabbit when the Germans come through Saïs. I'm not worrying. Meanwhile, he carries my field kit and washes brushes—if I ever can make up my mind to begin painting again.... That heavy, steady thunder from the north seems to take all ambition out of me."
"It affects me like real thunder," nodded Madame Arlon. "The air is lifeless and dead; one's feet drag and one's head grows heavy. It is like the languor which comes over one before a storm.
"Do the guns seem any louder to you since last night?"
"I was wondering.... Well, God's will be done.... But I do not believe it is in His heart to turn the glory of His face from France.... Magda, if we are to make the preserves today, it will be necessary for you to gather plums this morning. Linette, is that type still eating?"
"He stuffs himself without pause," replied the girl scornfully. "Only a guinea pig can eat like that!"
She went into the bar café and bent a pair of pretty but hostile eyes upon Asticot, who stared at her with his mouth full, then, still staring, buttered another slice of bread.
"Voyons," she said impatiently, "do you imagine yourself to be at dinner, young man? Permit me to remind you that this is breakfast—café-au-lait—not a banquet at the Hôtel de Ville!"
"I am hungry," said Asticot simply.
"Really?" she retorted, exasperated. "One might almost guess as much, what with the tartines and tranches you swallow as though you had nothing else to do. Come, stand up on what I suppose you call your feet. Your master is out in the road already, and I don't suppose that even you have the effrontery to keep him waiting."