The table was laid and the soup was
almost ready. The people were coming in. She was late as usual; there
was no time to change. She flung her garden hat aside and scrambled
into more presentable garments, while footsteps already sounded on the
wooden stairs that led up from the village street.
One by one the retired governesses entered, hung their cloaks upon the
pegs in the small, dark hallway, and took their places at the table.
They began talking among themselves, exchanging the little gossip of
the village, speaking of their books and clothes and sewing, of the
rooms in which they lived, scattered down the street, of the heating,
of barking dogs that disturbed their sleep, the behaviour of the
postman, the fine spring weather, and the views from their respective
windows across the lake and distant Alps. Each extolled her own
position: one had a garden; another a balcony; a third was on the top
floor and so had no noisy tenant overhead; a fourth was on the ground,
and had no stairs to climb. Each had her secret romance, and her
secret method of cheap feeding at home. There were five or six of
them, and this was their principal meal in the day; they meant to make
the most of it; they always did; they went home to light suppers of
tea and coffee, made in their own _appartements_.
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