Just then the girl left the room.

“How old is she?” asked the major.

“Barely seventeen.  She is stupid and dirty, but I only give her ten francs a month, and she eats nothing but soup.”

When Rose returned with an armful of plates Laguitte, though he did not care about women, began to scrutinize her and was amazed at seeing so ugly a creature.  She was very short, very dark and slightly deformed, with a face like an ape’s:  a flat nose, a huge mouth and narrow greenish eyes.  Her broad back and long arms gave her an appearance of great strength.

“What a snout!” said Laguitte, laughing, when the maid had again left the room to fetch the cruets.

“Never mind,” said Burle carelessly, “she is very obliging and does all one asks her.  She suits us well enough as a scullion.”

The dinner was very pleasant.  It consisted of boiled beef and mutton hash.  Charles was encouraged to relate some stories of his school, and Mme Burle repeatedly asked him the same question:  “Don’t you want to be a soldier?” A faint smile hovered over the child’s wan lips as he answered with the frightened obedience of a trained dog, “Oh yes, Grandmother.”  Captain Burle, with his elbows on the table, was masticating slowly with an absent-minded expression.  The big room was getting warmer; the single lamp placed on the table left the corners in vague gloom.  There was a certain amount of heavy comfort, the familiar intimacy of penurious people who do not change their plates at every course but become joyously excited at the unexpected appearance of a bowl of whipped egg cream at the close of the meal.

Rose, whose heavy tread shook the floor as she paced round the table, had not yet opened her mouth.  At last she stopped behind the captain’s chair and asked in a gruff voice:  “Cheese, sir?”

Burle started.  “What, eh?  Oh yes—­cheese.  Hold the plate tight.”

He cut a piece of Gruyere, the girl watching him the while with her narrow eyes.  Laguitte laughed; Rose’s unparalleled ugliness amused him immensely.  He whispered in the captain’s ear, “She is ripping!  There never was such a nose and such a mouth!  You ought to send her to the colonel’s someday as a curiosity.  It would amuse him to see her.”

More and more struck by this phenomenal ugliness, the major felt a paternal desire to examine the girl more closely.

“Come here,” he said, “I want some cheese too.”

She brought the plate, and Laguitte, sticking the knife in the Gruyere, stared at her, grinning the while because he discovered that she had one nostril broader than the other.  Rose gravely allowed herself to be looked at, waiting till the gentleman had done laughing.