“No.”
“There are hostels in the town.”
“No,” and yet again she repeated the blunt monosyllable “no.”
Fulcon echoed the “no,” and stared hard at the opposite wall.
Ban opened his mouth suddenly, and laughed as a dog can laugh on occasions. It was as though the matter was so absurdly simple that he was tickled by the way these humans bungled it.
Fulcon caught the dog’s eye. Ban’s laughter had been silent, his master’s came with a human gurgle.
“You want a lodging?” and he approached the question as something wholly new and astonishing, a matter that had never been previously mentioned.
“I can pay.”
“You can pay.”
The woman put back her hood, and gave Fulcon a full view of her face. Perhaps he felt what Ban had felt, for there was something in the woman’s eyes that made both these surly dogs quite debonair.