overed with flowers and a heap of good things? I had got it all
ready in the alcove; but you understand that to roll the table up to the
fire and make a little toilette, I wanted to be alone. Come, Monsieur,
take your place at table. I am as hungry as a hunter. May I offer you a
wing of cold chicken?"

"Your idea is charming, but, dear, really I am ashamed; I am in my
dressing-gown."

"Take off your dressing-gown if it incommodes you, Monsieur, but don't
leave this chicken wing on my hands. I want to serve you myself." And,
rising, she turned her sleeves up to the elbow, and placed her table
napkin on her arm.

"It is thus that the waiters at the restaurant do it, is it not?"

"Exactly; but, waiter, allow me at least to kiss your hand."

"I have no time," said she, laughing, sticking the corkscrew into the
neck of the bottle. "Chambertin--it is a pretty name; and then do you
remember that before our marriage (how hard this cork is!) you told me
that you liked it on account of a poem by Alfred de Musset? which,
by the way, you have not let me read yet. Do you see the two little
Bohemian glasses which I bought expressly for this evening? We will
drink each other's health in them."

"And his, too, eh?"

"The heir's, poor dear love of an heir! I should think so. And then I
will put away the two glasses against this time next year; they shall
be our Christmas Eve glasses? Every year we will sup like this together,
however old we may get."

"But, my dear, how about the time when we have no longer any teeth?"

"Well, we will sup on good strong soups; it will be very nice, all the
same. Another piece, please, with some of the jelly. Thanks."

As she held out her plate I noticed her arm, the outline of which was
lost in lace.

"Why are you looking up my sleeve instead of eating?"

"I am looking at your arm, dear. You are charming, let me tell you, this
evening. That coiffure suits you so well, and that dress which I was
unacquainted with."

"Well, when one seeks to make a conquest--"

"How pretty you look, pet!"

"Is it true that you think me charming, pretty, and a pet this evening?
Well, then," lowering her eyes and smiling at her bracelets, "in that
case I do not see why--"

"What is it you do not see, dear?"

"I do not see any reason why you should not come and give me just a
little kiss."

And as the kiss was prolonged, she said to me, amid bursts of laughter,
her head thrown back, and showing the do