and
complexions, extending to their skirts and their moving fingers. They
watched their work with that attention, light but continuous, given
by women to this labor of the fingers which the eye follows without a
thought.

At the four corners of the room four other lamps of Chinese porcelain,
borne by ancient columns of gilded wood, shed upon the hangings a soft,
even light, modified by lace shades thrown over the globes.

Bertin took a very low seat, a dwarf armchair, in which he could barely
seat himself, but which he had always preferred when talking with the
Countess because it brought him almost at her feet.

"You took a long walk with Nane this afternoon in the park," said the
Countess.

"Yes. We chatted like old friends. I like your daughter very much. She
resembles you very strongly. When she pronounces certain phrases, one
would believe that you had left your voice in her mouth."

"My husband has already said that very often."

He watched the two women work, bathed in the lamplight, and the thought
that had often made him suffer, which had given him suffering that day,
even--the recollection of his desolate home, still, silent, and cold,
whatever the weather, whatever fire might be lighted in chimney or
furnace--saddened him as if he now understood his bachelor's isolation
for the first time.

Oh, how deeply he longed to be the husband of this woman, and not her
lover! Once he had desired to carry her away, to take her from that man,
to steal her altogether. To-day he was jealous of him, that deceived
husband who was installed beside her forever, in the habits of her
household and under the sweet influence of her presence. In looking at
her he felt his heart full of old things revived, of which he wished
to speak. Certainly, he still loved her very much, even a little more
to-day than he had for some time; and the desire to tell her of this
return of youthful feeling, which would be sure to delight her, made him
wish that she would send the young girl to bed as soon as possible.

Obsessed by this strong desire to be alone with her, to sit near her and
lay his head on her knee, to take the hands from which would slip the
quilt for the poor, the needles, and the ball of wool, which would roll
under a sofa at the end of a long, unwound thread, he looked at the
time, relapsed into almost complete silence, and thought that it was
a great mistake to allow young girls to pass the evening with grown-up
persons