Madame—­You are pleased, are you not?

Monsieur—­Pleased at what, dear?

Madame—­Pleased at having vented your sarcasm, at having passed a jest on one who is absent.  Well, I tell you that you are a bad man, seeing that you seek to shake the faith of those about you.  My beliefs had need be very fervent, principles strong, and have real virtue, to resist these incessant attacks.  Well, why are you looking at me like that?

Monsieur—­I want to be converted, my little apostle.  You are so pretty when you speak out; your eyes glisten, your voice rings, your gestures—­I am sure that you could speak like that for a long time, eh? (He kisses her hand, and takes two of her curls and ties them under hey chin.) You are looking pretty, my pet.

Madame—­Oh! you think you have reduced me to silence because you have interrupted me.  Ah! there, you have tangled my hair.  How provoking you are!  It will take me an hour to put it right.  You are not satisfied with being a prodigy of impiety, but you must also tangle my hair.  Come, hold out your hands and take this skein of wool.

Monsieur—­(sitting down on a stool, which he draws as closely as possible to Madame, and holding up his hands) My little Saint John!

Madame—­Not so close, George; not so close. (She smiles despite herself.) How silly you are!  Please be careful; you will break my wool.

Monsieur—­Your religious wool.

Madame—­Yes, my religious wool. (She gives him a little pat on the cheek.) Why do you part your hair so much on one side, George?  It would suit you much better in the middle, here.  Yes, you may kiss me, but gently.

Monsieur—­Can you guess what I am thinking of?

Madame—­How do you imagine I could guess that?

Monsieur—­Well, I am thinking of the barometer which is falling and of the thermometer which is falling too.

Madame—­You see, cold weather is coming on and my mat will never be finished.  Come, let us make haste.

Monsieur—­I was thinking of the thermometer which is falling and of my room which faces due north.

Madame—­Did you not choose it yourself?  My wool!  Good gracious! my wool!  Oh! the wicked wretch!

Monsieur—­In summer my room with the northern aspect is, no doubt, very pleasant; but when autumn comes, when the wind creeps in, when the rain trickles down the windowpanes, when the fields, the country, seem hidden under a huge veil of sadness, when the spoils of our woodlands strew the earth, when the groves have lost their mystery and the nightingale her voice—­oh! then the room with the northern aspect has a very northern aspect, and—­

Madame—­(continuing to wind her wool)—­What nonsense you are talking!

Monsieur—­I protest against autumns, that is all.  God’s sun is hidden and I seek another.  Is not that natural, my little fairhaired saint, my little mystic lamb, my little blessed palmbranch?  This new sun I find in you, pet—­in your look, in the sweet odor of your person, in the rustling of your skirt, in the down on your neck which one notices by the lamp-light when you bend over the vicar’s mat, in your nostril which expands when my lips approach yours—­