"'I can't put you anywhere but in my bed,' I told him. I told him like
that, quickly, that he might know. And he answered like a gentleman, the
Lord save his soul: 'Madame, what lady could do more!'
"'But there's only one bed' I told him (I told him to make it clear),
'and I'm not young enough to sleep on the floor.' Not that I'm an old
woman. And he answered like a gentleman, the Lord save him...."
"I will tell _you_ the end," said the old woman, drawing near to Julien
as he took some money from his pocket to pay for the coffee.
Two hours later they drew up at a _cafe_ in the main square at Ligny.
Within was a gentle murmur of voices, a smell of soup and baking bread;
warm steam, the glow of oil lamps and reddened faces.
Sitting at a small table, with a white cloth, among the half-dozen
American soldiers who, having long finished their lunch, were playing
cards and dominoes, they ordered bread-soup, an omelette, white wine,
brille cheese and their own ration of bully beef which they had brought
in tins to be fried with onions.
A woman appeared from the door of the kitchen, carrying their bowl of
bread-soup. Across the plains of her great chest shone a white satin
waistcoat fastened with blue glass studs, and above her handsome face
rose a crown of well-brushed hair dyed in two shades of scarlet.
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