Page:Audoux - Valserine and other stories.djvu/141

 a large bundle of linen, which the washerwoman had brought back that morning, away from it and nearer to the window. The cupboard was in perfect order. On the top shelf in front were two white shirts, one on top of the other. Their starched cuffs looked as though the shirts had made a pillow of them. All along the shelf on either side were little bundles of neatly folded handkerchiefs and carefully rolled socks. Under the shelf coats and trousers hung from hooks. Marie slipped the hooks along the rod and peered on to the floor of the cupboard. She saw nothing there but tidy rows of boots and shoes in perfect order. She shut the cupboard door, and at that moment the light of the lamp lit up the glass door at the other side of the room, and the two sisters saw their uncle with his hat on his head, looking at them through the glass. Marie dropped her sister's arm and stepped back, but Angelique opened the glass door