OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

8 MAINLY MAIGRET
" Doing the rooms/*
No sooner had she spoken than Antoinette came down the stairs
carrying a pail and a floorcloth. For a moment she stared at her
sister, then exclaimed;
"Gosh!"
" What did you say? "
" I said ' Gosh! ' You are dolled up I Got a job in the movies? "
They dabbed their lips to each other's cheeks. Antoinette's eyes
fell on the blue slippers.
" Are they for me? "
" Well, I'd meant them for Ma, but as she doesn't want them
.. . I've brought you some stockings and undies. Look! "
Sylvie opened the other parcels, but without much interest. A
pipe rolled out and smashed on the floor.
"Will Pa be back soon?"
" Not till tonight. He's on the Ostend express now. You'll wait
to see him, won't you? "
" Nothing doing today. But I'll be coming again."
Her mother was eyeing her shrewdly. Perched on a chair, her
sister had pulled up her skirt, displaying her thin legs, and was
trying on the stockings. There was a smell of soup, a sound of
water boiling, the comfortable drone of a well-fed fire.
" All your rooms let? "
" Didn't you see the card in the window? The ground-floor
room's empty—the dearest one, needless to say. Nowadays
foreigners don't seem to have no money. You saw Monsieur Moise
just now) well, he has to come and study in the kitchen as he can't
afford a fire in his room. Lay the table, Antoinette. We'll have a
snack before the lodgers come."
" So you still give'them board? "
" There's two come every day for lunch. If I didn't feed 'em,
they'd be always plaguing me for hot water to make coffee and boil
eggs, and messing up their rooms with riots and pans."
Madame Baron was astout,short-legged woman. Antoinette, who
was shorter and thinner than her elder sister, had a quaint, bird-like
little face, pale-blue, laughing eyes.
" So you've taken to using rouge? " her elder sister observed.
" Why shouldn't I? You make up all right."
" It doesn't suit you. At your age ..."
" When you were my age you did lots of other things! *'
Her mother was straining the soup on a comer of the range.