uld be brought to do that. With a
comparatively trifling effort, Vendale's mind did it. As he took his
place on the old-fashioned window-seat, close by Marguerite and her
embroidery, a slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no
remark issued from it. Let it be remembered that solid furniture is not
easy to move, and that it has this advantage in consequence--there is no
fear of upsetting it.

Unusually silent and unusually constrained--with the bright colour fast
fading from her face, with a feverish energy possessing her fingers--the
pretty Marguerite bent over her embroidery, and worked as if her life
depended on it. Hardly less agitated himself, Vendale felt the
importance of leading her very gently to the avowal which he was eager to
make--to the other sweeter avowal still, which he was longing to hear. A
woman's love is never to be taken by storm; it yields insensibly to a
system of gradual approach. It ventures by the roundabout way, and
listens to the low voice. Vendale led her memory back to their past
meetings when they were travelling together in Switzerland. They revived
the impressions, they recalled the events, of the happy bygone time.
Little by little, Marguerite's constraint vanished. She smiled, she was
interested, she looked at Vendale, she grew idle with her needle, she
made false stitches in her work. Their voices sank lower and lower;
their faces bent nearer and nearer to each other as they spoke. And
Madame Dor? Madame Dor behaved like an angel. She never looked round;
she never said a word; she went on with Obenreizer's stockings. Pulling
each stocking up tight over her left arm, and holding that arm aloft from
time to time, to catch the light on her work, there were moments--delicate
and indescribable moments--when Madame Dor appeared to be sitting upside
down, and contemplating one of her own respectable legs, elevated in the
air. As the minutes wore on, these elevations followed each other at
longer and longer intervals. Now and again, the black gauze head-dress
nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself. A little heap of stockings
slid softly from Madame Dor's lap, and remained unnoticed on the floor. A
prodigious ball of worsted followed the stockings, and rolled lazily
under the table. The black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward,
recovered itself, nodded again, dropped forward again, and recovered
itself no more. A composite sound, partly as of the purr