"Dear, dear, it is unfortunate!" Madame Royaume exclaimed; and then with a fond look at her daughter, "Anne manages so well!"
"Yet if there be a room at any time vacant?"
"You shall assuredly have it."
"But, mother dear," the girl cried, "M. Grio and M. Basterga are permanent on the floor below. And Esau and Louis are now with us, and have but just entered on their course at college. And you know," she continued softly, "no one ever leaves your house before they are obliged to leave it, mother dear!"
The mother patted the daughter's hand. "No," she said proudly. "It is true. And we cannot turn any one away. And yet," looking up at Anne, "the son of Messer Mercier? You do not think—do you think that we could put him——"
"A closet however small!" Claude cried.
"Unfortunately the room beyond this can only be entered through this one."
"It is out of the question!" the girl responded quickly; and for the first time her tone rang a little hard. The next instant she seemed to repent of her petulance; she stooped and kissed the thin face sunk in the pillow's softness. Then, rising, "I am sorry," she continued stiffly and decidedly. "But it is impossible!"
"Still—if a vacancy should occur?" he pleaded.
Her eyes met his defiantly. "We will inform you," she said.