Now she had wasted five minutes, for the glass tubes, hinged on rubber, that formed her siphon from barrel to bottle had had perforce to be taken out of the spile-hole; the air had entered into it, and she would have to put it back and suck once more at the tube until the first trickle of cider entered her mouth. She disliked having to do that; it wasted the cider and she disliked the flavour in the afternoon when one had lunched. The little maid also would say: “A-oh, melady-ship, Ah du call thet queer!” … Nothing would cure that child of saying that though she was otherwise sage et docile. Even Gunning scratched his head at the sight of those tubes.
Could these savages never understand that if you want to have cidre mousseux—foaming—you must have as little sediment as possible? And that in the bottom of casks, even if they had not been moved for a long time, there will always be sediment—particularly if you set up a flow in the liquid by running it from a tap near the bottom. So you siphon off the top of the great casks for bottling mousseux, and drink the rest from the cask, and run the thickest into little thin-wood casks with many hoops for freezing in the winter. … To make calvados where you cannot have alembics because of the excise. … In this unhappy country you may not have alembics for the distilling of applejack, plum-brandy or other fines—because of the excise! Quel pays! Quels gens!
They lacked industry, frugality—and, above all, spirit! Look at that poor Valentine, hiding in her room upstairs because there were people about whom she suspected of being people from the English Lord’s house. … By rights that poor Valentine should be helping her with the bottling and ready to sell that lugubrious old furniture to visitors whilst her lord was away buying more old rubbish. … And she was distracted because she could not find some prints. They represented—Marie Léonie was well aware because she had heard the facts several times—street criers of ambulant wares in London years ago. There were only eight of these to be found. Where were the other four? The customer, an English lady of title, was anxious for them. As presents for an immediate wedding! Monsieur my brother-in-law had come upon the four that were to make up the set at a sale two days before. He had recounted with satisfaction how he had found them on the grass. … It was supposed that he had brought them home; but they were not in the warehouse at Cramp the carpenter’s, they were not to be found left in the cart. They were in no drawer or press. … What was to prove that mon beau-frère had brought them home from the sale? He was not there: he was gone for a day and a half. Naturally he would be gone for a day and a half when he was most needed. … And where was he gone, leaving his young wife in that nervous condition. For a day and a half! He had never before been gone for a day and a half. … There was then something brewing; it was in the air; it was in her bones. … It was like that dreadful day of the Armistice when this miserable land betrayed the beautiful pays de France! … When monsieur had borrowed forty pounds of her. … In the name of heaven why did not he borrow another forty—or eighty—or a hundred, rather than be distracted and distract Mark and his unhappy girl? …
She was not unsympathetic, that girl. She had civilization. She could talk of Philémon and Baucis. She had made her bachot, she was what you would call fille de famille. … But without chic. … Without … Without … Well, she neither displayed enough erudition to be a blas bleu—though she had enough erudition!—nor enough chic to be a femme légère—a poule who would faire la noce with her gallant. Monsieur the brother-in-law was no gay spark. But you never know with a man. … The cut of a skirt; a twist of the
