There was a long silence between us.  She grew calmer and continued, smiling: 

“How you would laugh at me, if you knew, if you knew how I pass my evenings, when the weather is fine.  I am ashamed and I pity myself at the same time.”

Beg as I might, she would not tell me what she did.  Then I rose to leave.

“Already!” she exclaimed.

And as I said that I wished to dine at Monte Carlo, she asked timidly: 

“Will you not dine with me?  It would give me a great deal of pleasure.”

I accepted at once.  She rang, delighted, and after giving some orders to the little maid she took me over her house.

A kind of glass-enclosed veranda, filled with shrubs, opened into the dining-room, revealing at the farther end the long avenue of orange trees extending to the foot of the mountain.  A low seat, hidden by plants, indicated that the old actress often came there to sit down.

Then we went into the garden, to look at the flowers.  Evening fell softly, one of those calm, moist evenings when the earth breathes forth all her perfumes.  Daylight was almost gone when we sat down at table.  The dinner was good and it lasted a long time, and we became intimate friends, she and I, when she understood what a profound sympathy she had aroused in my heart.  She had taken two thimblefuls of wine, as the phrase goes, and had grown more confiding and expansive.

“Come, let us look at the moon,” she said.  “I adore the good moon.  She has been the witness of my most intense joys.  It seems to me that all my memories are there, and that I need only look at her to bring them all back to me.  And even—­some times—­in the evening—­I offer to myself a pretty play—­yes, pretty—­if you only knew!  But no, you would laugh at me.  I cannot—­I dare not—­no, no—­really—­no.”

I implored her to tell me what it was.

“Come, now! come, tell me; I promise you that I will not laugh.  I swear it to you—­come, now!”

She hesitated.  I took her hands—­those poor little hands, so thin and so cold!—­and I kissed them one after the other, several times, as her lovers had once kissed them.  She was moved and hesitated.

“You promise me not to laugh?”

“Yes, I swear it to you.”

“Well, then, come.”

She rose, and as the little domestic, awkward in his green livery, removed the chair behind her, she whispered quickly a few words into his ear.

“Yes, madame, at once,” he replied.

She took my arm and led me to the veranda.

The avenue of oranges was really splendid to see.  The full moon made a narrow path of silver, a long bright line, which fell on the yellow sand, between the round, opaque crowns of the dark trees.

As these trees were in bloom, their strong, sweet perfume filled the night, and swarming among their dark foliage I saw thousands of fireflies, which looked like seeds fallen from the stars.