Ledoux stretched out a hand that was like the clawed foot of a bird.
“Capitalists? They sell everything. They ought to be kicked out of Beaucourt.”
“Yes, why don’t we smash the place up?”
Bibi gave a kind of rolling laugh.
“That’s the music. But wait a bit; I am finding out something about those people; I might be blind, but I can see through a wall. Yes, just you wait a bit, my lads, and I may have something surprising to tell you. Then we’ll make a night of it, and send up the balloon.”
If Beaucourt was moved to some resentment against Manon for taking these English into her house, Manon herself soon saw too much of them. She had sent for a girl to help her, and these two Frenchwomen cooked, and made beds, arranged a table for six, and did their best to make the tourists comfortable. About sunset, Paul was at work in the garden when Manon came out to him, a Manon who was wholesomely and humanly angry.
“Mon Dieu, but they are impossible! They have no manners.”
“What has happened, chérie?”
“Happened! Nothing has happened, but everything is wrong. I can understand their grumbling. But they swarm in and behave as though the house belonged to them; they shout down the stairs at me, ‘Femme de chambre, ici, toute de suite!’ They ask for all sorts of impossible things, and the women look at me like angry cows.”
Paul tried to comfort her. He felt rather responsible for these English.