“That was nearly five years ago,” she said; “and, if you please, we will forget it.”
“I’m sorry,” Brent told her; “weren’t you——?”
“It was a very excellent marriage; our parents arranged it, and my father died six months later. No, this house always belonged to us, not to the Latours.”
She took the photo back to the cellar, nor did she return for some minutes, leaving Brent warming his hands at the stove. She had said so little, but enough to make Paul understand that her first marriage had not been happy, that it had left no delicate roots behind it. If Brent was guilty of a secret gladness, he hid it, but the gladness was there. He felt sorry in an impersonal way for that cold-eyed fellow who lay dead somewhere in France, but the human part of him was with Manon. He hoped that it would come all fresh to her, as fresh and as rich and as generous as it seemed to him.
April came, and it rained hard for two days, driving Brent indoors. At dinner they sat and looked at the roof, watching for drips, and exulting when no drips appeared. Paul had been fixing the floor of the room above the kitchen.
“It is a splendid roof,” said Manon; “it is you who rain sawdust.”
“I can’t taste it.”
“Look in your potage. I was away only half a minute, but you managed to drop that wooden salt of yours into the saucepan.”
Brent gave her an oblique, laughing look.
“Supposing we put up the ceiling. It will be rather like laying a carpet upside down.”