"Oh, that Mimi, how funny he is! He's thought of it after all! And to
think I didn't remember it any longer! So you've slipped off; you're
just out of church. Yes, certainly, you've got a scent of incense about
you. But kiss me, kiss me! Oh, harder than that, Mimi dear! Bah! Perhaps
it's for the last time."
In the dim room, where a vague odor of ether still lingered, their
tender laughter died away suddenly. The heavy, warm breeze swelled
the window curtains, and children's voices were audible in the avenue
without. Then the lateness of the hour tore them asunder and set them
joking again. Daguenet took his departure with his wife directly after
the breakfast.
CHAPTER XIII
Toward the end of September Count Muffat, who was to dine at Nana's that
evening, came at nightfall to inform her of a summons to the Tuileries.
The lamps in the house had not been lit yet, and the servants were
laughing uproariously in the kitchen regions as he softly mounted the
stairs, where the tall windows gleamed in warm shadow. The door of the
drawing room up-stairs opened noiselessly. A faint pink glow was dying
out on the ceiling of the room, and the red hangings, the deep divans,
the lacquered furniture, with their medley of embroidered fabrics and
bronzes and china, were already sleeping under a slowly creeping flood
of shadows, which drowned nooks and corners and blotted out the gleam
of ivory and the glint of gold.
Pages:
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666