She
shivered as her eyes met mine, and she blinked as if a bright
light had been suddenly thrust before her; but that was all, and
she turned again to her task without speaking.
'Madame! Madame!" I cried in a frenzy of distress. 'What is
this?'
'The servants would not do it,' she answered in a low but steady
voice. 'You are still our guest, Monsieur.'
'But I cannot suffer it!' I cried. 'Madame de Cocheforet, I
will not--'
She raised her hand with a strange patient expression in her
face.
'Hush! please,' she said. 'Hush! you trouble me.'
The fire blazed up as she spoke, and she rose slowly from it, and
with a lingering look at it went out, leaving me to stand and
stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Presently I heard
her coming back along the passage, and she entered bearing a tray
with wine and meat and bread. She set it down on the table, and
with the same wan face, trembling always on the verge of tears,
she began to lay out the things. The glasses clinked fitfully
against the plates as she handled them; the knives jarred with
one another.
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