of her late mother or the sculptural group representing Niobe and some of her offspring by the late Monsieur Casimir-Bar, or the overmantel clock that was an exact reproduction in bronze of the Fountain of the Médicis in the gardens of the Luxembourg at Paris—that was a matter of taste.
Elle might very well feel umbrage that she, Marie Léonie, should possess articles of such acknowledged prestige. For what could be more unapproachable than a Second Empire fauteuil newly gilt and maintained, she could assure the world, at such a pitch of glitter as dazzled the eyes?
Elle might very well feel umbrage when you considered that the skirt that she wore when gardening was … Well, in short was what it was! Nevertheless, in that skirt she allowed herself to be seen by the clergyman. But why did
Il, who was admittedly a man of honour and sensibility and reputed to know all the things of this world and perhaps of the next—why did
He join in the infinitely stupid conspiracy against the work of the great genius Casimir-Bar? She, Marie Léonie, could understand that He, in his difficult situation, would not wish to give permission to install in the salon works at which
Elle took umbrage because her possessions did not include objects of art which all the world acknowledged to be of classic rank, not to mention the string of pearls which she, Marie Léonie, Riotor by birth, owed to the generosity of him, Mark, and her own economies. And other objects of value and taste. That was reasonable. If your woman is poorly
dot-ed … Let us call it
dot-ed … because certainly she, Marie Léonie, was not one to animadvert upon those in situations of difficulty. … It would ill become her so to do. Nevertheless, a great period of years of honesty, frugality, regularity of life and cleanliness. … And she asked Mark if he had ever seen in
her parlour traces of mud such as on wet days she had certainly observed in the salon of a certain person. … And certain revelations she could make as to the condition of a cupboard under the stairs and the state to be observed behind certain presses in the kitchen. But if you have not had experience in the control of domestics, what would you? … Nevertheless, a stretch of years passed in the state of housewifeliness such as she had already adumbrated upon gave one the right to comment—of course with delicacy—upon the
ménage of a young person even though her delicate situation might avert from her comment of an unchristian nature as to certain other facts. It did, however, seem to her, Marie Léonie, that to appear before a clergyman in a skirt decorated with no less than three visible
tâches of petrol, wearing gloves encrusted with mud as you encrust a truffle with paste before baking it under the cinders—and holding, of all implements, a common gardening-trowel. … And to laugh and joke with him! … Surely the situation called for a certain—let them call it, retirement of demeanour. She was far from according to the Priest as such the extravagant privileges to which he laid claim. The late Monsieur Casimir-Bar was accustomed to say that, if we accorded to our
soi-disant spiritual advisers all that they would take, we should lie upon a bed that had neither sheets,
eidredons, pillows, bolsters, nor settle. And she, Marie Léonie, was inclined to agree with Monsieur Casimir-Bar, though, as one of the heroes of the barricades in 1848, he was apt to be a little extreme in his tenets. Still a vicar is in England a functionary of the State and as such should be received with a certain modesty and reserve. Yet she, Marie Léonie, formerly Riotor, her mother having been born Lavigne-Bourdreau and having in consequence a suspicion of Huguenot blood, so that she, Marie Léonie, might be expected to know how the Protestant clergy should be received—she then, Marie Léonie, from the little window on the side of the stairs, had distinctly seen
Elle lay one hand on the shoulder of that clergyman and point—point, mind you, with the
trowel—to the open front door and say—she had distinctly heard the words: “Poor man, if you have hunger you will find
Mr. Tietjens in the dining-room. He is just eating a sandwich. It’s hungry weather!” … That was six months ago, but Marie Léonie’s ears still tingled at the words and the gesture. A trowel! To point with a
trowel;
pensez y! If a trowel why not a
main de fer, a dustpan? Or a vessel even more homely! … And Marie Léonie chuckled.
Her grandmother Bourdreau remembered a crockery-merchant of the ambulating sort who had once filled one of those implements—a vase de nuit—but of course new, with milk and had offered the whole gratuitously to any passerby who would drink the milk. A young woman called Laborde accepted his challenge there in the marketplace of Noisy-Lebrun. She had lost her fiancé, who found the gesture exaggerated. But he was a farceur, that crockery-dealer!
She drew from the pocket of her pinafore several folded pages of a newspaper and from under the bed a double picture-frame—two frames hinged together so that they would close. She inserted a sheet of the paper between the two frames and then hung the whole on a piece of picture wire that depended from the rooftree beneath the thatch. Two braces of picture-wire, too, came from the supporting posts, to right and left. They held the picture-frames motionless and a little inclined towards Mark’s face. She was agreeable to look at, stretching up her arms. She lifted his torso with great strength and infinite solicitude, propped it a little with the pillows and looked to see that his eyes fell on the printed sheet. She said:
“You can see well, like that?”
His eyes took in the
