And the two girls stared at the gap.
"Haven't you noticed it before ?" said Germaine.
"No; the broken glass must have fallen outside," said Sonia.
The noise of the opening of the door drew their attention from the window.

Two figures were advancing towards them--a short, round, tubby man of fifty-five, red-faced, bald, with bright grey eyes, which seemed to be continually dancing away from meeting the eyes of any other human being.

Behind him came a slim young man, dark and grave.

For all the difference in their colouring, it was clear that they were father and son: their eyes were set so close together.

The son seemed to have inherited, along with her black eyes, his mother's nose, thin and aquiline; the nose of the father started thin from the brow, but ended in a scarlet bulb eloquent of an exhaustive acquaintance with the vintages of the world.
Germaine rose, looking at them with an air of some surprise and uncertainty: these were not her friends, the Du Buits.
The elder man, advancing with a smiling bonhomie, bowed, and said in an adenoid voice, ingratiating of tone: "I'm M.Charolais, young ladies--M.