will break my wool.

Monsieur--Your religious wool.

Madame--Yes, my religious wool. (She gives him a little pat on the
cheek.) Why do you part your hair so much on one side, George? It would
suit you much better in the middle, here. Yes, you may kiss me, but
gently.

Monsieur--Can you guess what I am thinking of?

Madame--How do you imagine I could guess that?

Monsieur--Well, I am thinking of the barometer which is falling and of
the thermometer which is falling too.

Madame--You see, cold weather is coming on and my mat will never be
finished. Come, let us make haste.

Monsieur--I was thinking of the thermometer which is falling and of my
room which faces due north.

Madame--Did you not choose it yourself? My wool! Good gracious! my wool!
Oh! the wicked wretch!

Monsieur--In summer my room with the northern aspect is, no doubt, very
pleasant; but when autumn comes, when the wind creeps in, when the rain
trickles down the windowpanes, when the fields, the country, seem hidden
under a huge veil of sadness, when the spoils of our woodlands strew the
earth, when the groves have lost their mystery and the nightingale her
voice--oh! then the room with the northern aspect has a very northern
aspect, and--

Madame--(continuing to wind her wool)--What nonsense you are talking!

Monsieur--I protest against autumns, that is all. God's sun is hidden
and I seek another. Is not that natural, my little fairhaired saint, my
little mystic lamb, my little blessed palmbranch? This new sun I find
in you, pet--in your look, in the sweet odor of your person, in the
rustling of your skirt, in the down on your neck which one notices by
the lamp-light when you bend over the vicar's mat, in your nostril which
expands when my lips approach yours--

Madame--Will you be quiet, George? It is Friday, and Ember week.

Monsieur--And your dispensation? (He kisses her.) Don't you see that
your hand shakes, that you blush, that your heart is beating?

Madame--George, will you have done, sir? (She pulls away her hand,
throws herself back in the chair, and avoids her husband's glance.)

Monsieur--Your poor little heart beats, and it is right, dear; it knows
that autumn is the time for confidential chats and evening caresses, the
time for kisses. And you know it too, for you defend yourself poorly,
and I defy you to look me in the face. Come! look me in the face.

Madame--(she suddenly leans toward hey husband, the ball of wool rolling