The House of Adventure by Warwick Deeping

Anatole Durand was away for two hours, and when he returned to the Café de la Victoire he found that Brent had extemporized a ladder out of some lengths of timber and was at work again on the roof of the house. The gale of the preceding night had been a warning to Manon's partner, and he was in a hurry to get the whole roof covered in before the wind rose again. Manon was helping at the foot of the ladder, and making further use of Monsieur Durand's rope. She had knotted a big loop at one end of it, a loop which would grip a couple of sheets of iron, so that Paul could draw them up.

Old Durand sat down on the running-board of his car and watched. He had seen his château, and he had seen Beaucourt, and perhaps he had been a little discouraged, though Manon had warned him against what he called "la maladie des ruines," but as he watched the cheerful activities of these two, Brent hauling up the sheets and nailing them down with the speed and precision of a human machine, the adventure of it thrilled him.