These five ounces of cheese finished me completely; it was as if
something snapped within my forehead. But yet, to give the impression that
I still worked out my calculation, I moved my lips and muttered a number
aloud, all the while sliding farther and farther down the reckoning as if
I were steadily coming to a result. She sat and waited. At last I said:
"Well, now, I have gone through it from first to last, and there is no
mistake, as far as I can see."
"Isn't there?" replied the woman, "isn't there really?" But I saw well
that she did not believe me, and she seemed all at once to throw a dash of
contempt into her words, a slightly careless tone that I had never heard
from her before. She remarked that perhaps I was not accustomed to reckon
in sixteenths; she mentioned also that she must only apply to some one who
had a knowledge of sixteenths, to get the account properly revised. She
said all this, not in any hurtful way to make me feel ashamed, but
thoughtfully and seriously. When she got as far as the door, she said,
without looking at me:
"Excuse me for taking up your time then."
Off she went.
A moment after, the door opened again, and she re-entered. She could
hardly have gone much farther than the stairs before she had turned back.
"That's true," said she; "you mustn't take it amiss; but there is a little
owing to me from you now, isn't there? Wasn't it three weeks yesterday
since you came?" Yes, I thought it was.
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