With supper over, Manon cleared the table, lit two candles, produced a writing pad and pencil from the cupboard. They drew two chairs up on the side of the stove, and sat with their heads close together, Manon sketching out a plan of the house. There would be seven rooms in all, four on the ground floor, and three above, but the rooms on the other side of the passage were rather small, and one of them could only be reached by passing through an outer room.
“The visitors would have to take their meals here in the kitchen, unless we arranged to let them use the public room on the other side of the passage.”
“English people might not like that. Let them sit and see their own food cooked; it would amuse them.”
“I should have to engage a strong girl to help.”
“That wouldn’t be difficult, would it?”
“I am thinking of the bedrooms,” Manon said. “We shall have only four, even if we use the little ground-floor room that looks out on the garden.”
She scribbled lines and crosses on the paper, frowning on the problem.
“Supposing we were to give the girl that little room.”
“Yes.”
“Keep the public room where it is, and turn the back room into a little salon for the visitors or ourselves. But that would only leave us one spare bedroom.”