“May he get drunk on pay day.”
“And sell another Joseph into Egypt.”
The woman Malmain came in to join them, corpulent and thirsty. Superabundant and colossal, she impressed a strenuous and didactic mood upon the company, grumbling like a volcano, emitting a smoke of mighty unfeminine gossip. Her black eyes wandered continually towards Mark of the guard. She watched him with a certain air of possession amid all her sweat and jabber, laughing when he laughed, making herself a coarse echo to his will.
Some one spoke of Gorlois’s wife. So personal a subject moved Malmain to mystery on the instant. She tapped her forehead with her finger; shook her head with a significance that was sufficient for the occasion.
“Mad!” said the captain of the guard.
Malmain sucked her lips and yawned with her great chasm of a mouth.
“She was always that,” she said with a hiccough.
“Paradise, eh?”
“And golden harps!”
“And, damme, no beer!”