same spoon turn and turn
about while demolishing a pot of preserves they had discovered at the
top of a cupboard.

"Oh, you dear old girl!" said Nana, pushing back the round table. "I
haven't made such a good dinner these ten years past!"

Yet it was growing late, and she wanted to send her boy off for fear he
should be suspected of all sorts of things. But he kept declaring that
he had plenty of time to spare. For the matter of that, his clothes were
not drying well, and Zoe averred that it would take an hour longer at
least, and as she was dropping with sleep after the fatigues of the
journey, they sent her off to bed. After which they were alone in the
silent house.

It was a very charming evening. The fire was dying out amid glowing
embers, and in the great blue room, where Zoe had made up the bed before
going upstairs, the air felt a little oppressive. Nana, overcome by the
heavy warmth, got up to open the window for a few minutes, and as she
did so she uttered a little cry.

"Great heavens, how beautiful it is! Look, dear old girl!"

Georges had come up, and as though the window bar had not been
sufficiently wide, he put his arm round Nana's waist and rested his
head against her shoulder. The weather had undergone a brisk change: the
skies were clearing, and a full moon lit up the country with its golden
disk of light. A sovereign quiet reigned over the valley. It seemed
wider and larger as it opened on the immense distances of the plain,
where the trees loomed like little shadowy islands amid a shining and
waveless lake. And Nana grew tenderhearted, felt herself a child again.
Most surely she had dreamed of nights like this at an epoch which she
could not recall. Since leaving the train every object of sensation--the
wide countryside, the green things with their pungent scents, the house,
the vegetables--had stirred her to such a degree that now it seemed to
her as if she had left Paris twenty years ago. Yesterday's existence
was far, far away, and she was full of sensations of which she had no
previous experience. Georges, meanwhile, was giving her neck little
coaxing kisses, and this again added to her sweet unrest. With
hesitating hand she pushed him from her, as though he were a child whose
affectionate advances were fatiguing, and once more she told him that
he ought to take his departure. He did not gainsay her. All in good
time--he would go all in good time!

But a bird raised its song and again was