Sophia saw that they were expected.  Chirac must have paid a previous visit to the restaurant that morning.  Several disordered tables showed that people had already lunched, and left; but in the corner was a table for two, freshly laid in the best manner of such restaurants; that is to say, with a red-and-white checked cloth, and two other red-and-white cloths, almost as large as the table-cloth, folded as serviettes and arranged flat on two thick plates between solid steel cutlery; a salt-cellar, out of which one ground rock-salt by turning a handle, a pepper-castor, two knife-rests, and two common tumblers.  The phenomena which differentiated this table from the ordinary table were a champagne bottle and a couple of champagne glasses.  Champagne was one of the few items which had not increased in price during the siege.

The landlord and his wife were eating in another corner, a fat, slatternly pair, whom no privations of a siege could have emaciated.  The landlord rose.  He was dressed as a chef, all in white, with the sacred cap; but a soiled white.  Everything in the place was untidy, unkempt and more or less unclean, except just the table upon which champagne was waiting.  And yet the restaurant was agreeable, reassuring.  The landlord greeted his customers as honest friends.  His greasy face was honest, and so was the pale, weary, humorous face of his wife.  Chirac saluted her.

“You see,” said she, across from the other corner, indicating a bone on her plate.  “This is Diane!”

“Ah! the poor animal!” exclaimed Chirac, sympathetically.

“What would you?” said the landlady.  “It cost too dear to feed her.  And she was so mignonne!  One could not watch her grow thin!”

“I was saying to my wife,” the landlord put in, “how she would have enjoyed that bone—­Diane!” He roared with laughter.

Sophia and the landlady exchanged a curious sad smile at this pleasantry, which had been re-discovered by the landlord for perhaps the thousandth time during the siege, but which he evidently regarded as quite new and original.

“Eh, well!” he continued confidentially to Chirac.  “I have found for you something very good—­half a duck.”  And in a still lower tone:  “And it will not cost you too dear.”

No attempt to realize more than a modest profit was ever made in that restaurant.  It possessed a regular clientele who knew the value of the little money they had, and who knew also how to appreciate sincere and accomplished cookery.  The landlord was the chef, and he was always referred to as the chef, even by his wife.

“How did you get that?” Chirac asked.

“Ah!” said the landlord, mysteriously.  “I have one of my friends, who comes from Villeneuve St. Georges—­refugee, you know.  In fine ...”  A wave of the fat hands, suggesting that Chirac should not inquire too closely.

“In effect!” Chirac commented.  “But it is very chic, that!”