ally a shop that harbours large rats that will come and
nibble my toes in bed! Moreover, there would be
your father and mother.5
Ah, yes, Clotilde was going to be difficult to
please and the town of Saint Loup had little to offer —
no cinemas, no dances, no milliners' shops, no zoo-
logical gardens, no brightly lit boulevards along
which to stroll of an evening with friends—indeed
it had little to offer but Guillaume. And knowing
this, Guillaume must tread warily, so that when he
had ventured: 'You remember my godfather whom
you saw at la Tarasque that afternoon? I would wish
him to make our marriage-bed for us, and also, per-
haps, one or two other things . . /he had quickly
succumbed to Clotilde's protests, eagerly agreeing
that what they required was a modern bedstead with
blue cretonne curtains, a drawing-room suite of gilt
and cerise, and a dining-room suite of carved ebony —
or at least of something that looked very like it.
Clotilde had wanted their furniture to be bought
in Marseille, which perhaps was quite natural; but
then had arisen the question of means: the notary
was willing to pay for their apartment but not, it
appeared, for what they put in it, so Guillaume had
gone to see Anatole Kahn to arrange for a certain
amount of credit. Kahn had promptly agreed to
quarterly payments; he was only too pleased to help
the young couple, they might choose what they liked,
he was only too pleased ... of course there would be
just a little percentage. So one evening towards the
beginning of June, Clotilde arrived to stay for a
night with Guillaume's respectful but nervous parents
—this in order to visit the Galeries Kahn the next
morning with an equally nervous Guillaume.
It was surely the devil's own luck that Marie should
have chanced to be passing at the time of their visit,
that the door of the shop should have chanced to be
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