Part 34 (1/2)
It was a scrupulously clean room. A stove stood in one corner. Against the wall hung a row of pots and pans that caught the light from the swinging lamp in brilliant, burnished patches.
Angele and Jean sat near to each other at the center table. Their heads were close. Their cautious whispering stopped abruptly as she came toward them.
The woman sat down with the girl on one side of her and the boy on the other. She was very silent. There was only one thing she could have said. She did not want to say it.
Mechanically she tried to eat. She watched her hands moving upward from her plate with a sort of dazed interest. It was only when she tried to swallow that she realized how each mouthful of food choked her.
The one question came to her lips again and again.
At last she asked it.
”When do you go--mon Jean?”
The boy gave a quick glance at his sister and his eyes fixed themselves upon the table before him and stayed there. She knew then what they had been speaking of when she came into the room.
”What difference does it make, pet.i.te Maman, when I go?”
”But when, my son?”
”See, Angele, she is anxious to be rid of me! She cannot wait until I go. She insists upon knowing even before we have finished this supper of ours.”
”Maman;”--the girl spoke hurriedly. ”Let us talk of that later.”
”When?” She insisted.
”But, Maman, you have not touched your food. Was it not good? And I thought you would so like the p't.i.t marmite.”
”It is excellent, Angele.”
”Then eat, Maman.”
”It is that I am not hungry, Angele.”
”So, the p't.i.t marmite is not good, pet.i.te Maman. If it were excellent, even though you have no hunger, you would eat and eat until there was not one little bit left.”
The woman took another spoonful.
”When?” She repeated.
The boy's dark eyes lifted and looked into hers.
”To-night,--Maman.”
Her figure straightened itself with a quick jerk.
”To-night?”
”And what does it matter, pet.i.te Maman, when I go? Surely to-night is as nice a time as any.”
”As nice a time as any;” she echoed his words.