r
control, she refrained from uttering the studied words which, she had
felt, were indispensable for the full realisation of her desire. And
perpetually, in the depths of her being, a shy and suppliant maiden
would kneel before that other element, the old campaigner, battered but
triumphant, would intercede with him and oblige him to retire.

"Oh, yes, it is so extremely likely that people are looking at us at
this time of night in this densely populated district!" said her friend,
with bitter irony. "And what if they are?" she went on, feeling bound
to annotate with a malicious yet affectionate wink these words which
she was repeating, out of good nature, like a lesson prepared beforehand
which, she knew, it would please Mlle. Vinteuil to hear. "And what if
they are? All the better that they should see us."

Mlle. Vinteuil shuddered and rose to her feet. In her sensitive
and scrupulous heart she was ignorant what words ought to flow,
spontaneously, from her lips, so as to produce the scene for which her
eager senses clamoured. She reached out as far as she could across the
limitations of her true character to find the language appropriate to
a vicious young woman such as she longed to be thought, but the
words which, she imagined, such a young woman might have uttered with
sincerity sounded unreal in her own mouth. And what little she allowed
herself to say was said in a strained tone, in which her ingrained
timidity paralysed her tendency to freedom and audacity of speech; while
she kept on interrupting herself with: "You're sure you aren't cold? You
aren't too hot? You don't want to sit and read by yourself?...

"Your ladyship's thoughts seem to be rather 'warm' this evening," she
concluded, doubtless repeating a phrase which she had heard used, on
some earlier occasion, by her friend.

In the V-shaped opening of her crape bodice Mlle. Vinteuil felt the
sting of her friend's sudden kiss; she gave a little scream and
ran away; and then they began to chase one another about the room,
scrambling over the furniture, their wide sleeves fluttering like
wings, clucking and crowing like a pair of amorous fowls. At last Mlle.
Vinteuil fell down exhausted upon the sofa, where she was screened from
me by the stooping body of her friend. But the latter now had her back
turned to the little table on which the old music-master's portrait had
been arranged. Mlle. Vinteuil realised that her friend would not see
it unless her att