“Oh—well—if you feel like throwing money about! I suppose wine will be included.”
“Wine is an extra, madame.”
Her eyes said, “Robber, and after all we English have done for you!”—but her man made up his mind not to argue. Somehow Beaucourt was too big for him.
“All right. Show us the rooms.”
Brent surrendered the party to Manon, and piloted the chauffeur and the yellow car into the yard. As he switched off the engine, the ex-Tommy gave Paul a brotherly grin.
“You stuck ’em all right. Good biz.”
It was an unfortunate coincidence, but the unpleasant impression stamped upon the consciousness of Beaucourt by these New English reacted upon the popularity of the Café de la Victoire. It was the stupidity of these people, their spiritual obtuseness, that offended the French. The whole family went out to explore the village as though Beaucourt were the “White City.” They had paid their entrance money, and they had come to stare. There was something insolent in their largeness, and in the largeness of the car. Their very clothes were offensive in Beaucourt. They strolled, they talked in loud voices, they pointed. They were amused by the wrong things, and untouched by wounds that should have made them ashamed. There were moments when the man appeared awkward and uncomfortable, and showed a disinclination to loiter. The women were absolutely insensitive. Their super-fatted souls were blind to the sacrilege of certain attitudes. Two of them poked their heads into the interior of Madame Poirel’s cottage. It was one of the side-shows, and they examined it with the eyes of cows. Madame Poirel happened to be sitting in her chair, patching a petticoat. She had lost her two sons in the war.
“What do you wish, mesdames?”
The Englishwomen did not realize they were on sacred ground, standing on the very stone where Madame Poirel’s boys had sat as toddlers. They did not see the room as a place of memories, a dim interior that was almost a shrine. They stared. They made remarks. One of them nodded casually at the Frenchwoman.
Madame Poirel got up and very calmly closed the door.