The sight of this bed caused her a nightly dismay. "Oh, if I could but
make it in the morning how different this room would look!"
There would be no one in the sitting-room, but a tin would stand on the
stove with one, two, or three pieces of meat in it. By this she knew
whether the cubicles were full or if one or two were empty. Sometimes
the coffee jug would rise too lightly from the floor as she lifted it,
and in an angry voice she would call through the hut: "There is no
coffee!" Silence, silence; till a voice, goaded by the silence, cried:
"Ask Madeleine!"
And Madeleine, the little maid, had long since gone over to laugh with
the men in the garage.
Then came the owners of the second and third piece of meat, stumbling
across the bridge and up the corridor, lantern in hand. And Fanny,
perhaps remembering a treasure left in her car, would rise, leave them
to eat, feel her way to the garage, and back again to the safety of her
room with a tin of sweetened condensed milk under her arm. So low in
comfort had she sunk it needed but this to make her happy. She had never
known so sharp, so sweet a sense of luxury as that with which she
prepared the delicacy she had seized by her own cunning. It had not
taken her long to learn the possibilities of the American Y.M.C.A., the
branch in Bar, or any other which she might pass in her travels.
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