“What spurs you wear on your conscience! Am I to agree? Well, what can a woman do? Who’s that?”
Someone had entered the house. It was Anatole Durand, an Anatole who wanted to gossip, and he stood at the foot of the staircase, looking up.
“Hallo!”
“Won’t you come and look, monsieur?”
He climbed up on his brisk legs, amused, smiling.
“Talking over the furniture, hey?”
“There is one room that needs a floor, and we have no more wood.”
“Wood—wood? Why, I’ll give it you.”
“But we have had more than our share in taking the wood from those huts.”
“Tiens,” said old Durand, “isn’t an old man allowed to be silly now and again? One can’t help having favourites, you know.”