‘My sister has had her luncheon?’ he asked.  ’Quite right of her.  Luncheon should always be served whenever I am kept out.’

No answer came.  La Teuse stood there waiting to remove his plate as soon as he should have emptied it.  Thereupon, feeling that he could not possibly eat with those implacable eyes crushing him, he pushed his plate away.  This angry gesture acted on La Teuse like a whip stroke, rousing her from her obstinate stiffness.  She fairly jumped.

‘Ah! that’s how it is!’ she exclaimed.  ’There you are again, losing your temper!  Very well, I am off; you can pay my fare, so that I may go back home.  I have had enough of Les Artaud, and your church, and everything else!’

She took off her apron with trembling hands.

’You must have seen that I didn’t wish to say anything to you.  A nice life, indeed!  Only mountebanks do such things, Monsieur le Cure!  This is eleven o’clock, ain’t it!  Aren’t you ashamed of sitting at table when it’s almost two o’clock?  It’s not like a Christian, no, it is not like a Christian!’

And, taking her stand before him, she went on:  ’Well, where do you come from? whom have you seen? what business can have kept you?  If only you were a child you would have the whip.  It isn’t the place for a priest to be, on the roads in the blazing sun like a tramp without a roof to put over his head.  A fine state you are in, with your shoes all white and your cassock smothered in dust!  Who will brush your cassock for you?  Who will buy you another one?  Speak out, will you; tell me what you have been doing!  My word! if everybody didn’t know you, they would end by thinking queer things about you.  And shall I tell you?  Why, I won’t say but what you may have been up to something wrong.  When folks lunch at such hours they are capable of anything!’

Abbe Mouret let the storm blow over him.  At the old servant’s wrathful words he experienced a kind of relief.

‘Come, my good Teuse,’ he said, ’you will first put your apron on again.’

‘No, no,’ she cried, ‘it’s all over, I am going.’

But he got up and, laughing, tied her apron round her waist.  She struggled against him and stuttered:  ’I tell you no!  You are a wheedler.  I can see through your game, I see you want to come it over me with your honeyed words.  Where did you go?  We’ll see afterwards.’

He gaily sat down to table again like a man who has gained a victory.

‘First, I must be allowed to eat.  I am dying with hunger,’ said he.

‘No doubt,’ she murmured, her pity moved.  ’Is there any common sense in it?  Would you like me to fry you a couple of eggs?  It would not take long.  Well, if you have enough.  But everything is cold!  And I had taken such pains with your aubergines!  Nice they are now!  They look like old shoe-leather.  Luckily you haven’t got a tender tooth like poor Monsieur Caffin.  Yes, you have some good points, I don’t deny it.’