He turned briskly round:
"Suppose we answer that young vagabond at once," he said.
It was the custom for him to write the letters in reply. He was wont to
vie with the other in point of style. Then, too, he used to be delighted
when Nana, grown enthusiastic after the letter had been read over aloud,
would kiss him with the announcement that nobody but he could "say
things like that." Thus their latent affections would be stirred, and
they would end with mutual adoration.
"As you will," she replied. "I'll make tea, and we'll go to bed after."
Thereupon Fontan installed himself at the table on which pen, ink and
paper were at the same time grandly displayed. He curved his arm; he
drew a long face.
"My heart's own," he began aloud.
And for more than an hour he applied himself to his task, polishing
here, weighing a phrase there, while he sat with his head between his
hands and laughed inwardly whenever he hit upon a peculiarly tender
expression. Nana had already consumed two cups of tea in silence, when
at last he read out the letter in the level voice and with the two or
three emphatic gestures peculiar to such performances on the stage. It
was five pages long, and he spoke therein of "the delicious hours passed
at La Mignotte, those hours of which the memory lingered like subtle
perfume.
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