She held him, drawing him toward the other salon at the back, where they could not be heard.  She drew him by his coat, clinging to him and panting.  When she had led him as far as the little circular divan, she made him let himself fall upon it; then she sat down beside him.

“Olivier, my friend, my only friend, I pray you to tell me that you love her.  I know it, I feel it from all that you do.  I cannot doubt it.  I am dying of it, but I wish to know it from your own lips.”

As he still resisted, she fell on her knees at his feet.  Her voice shook.

“Oh, my friend, my only friend!  Is it true that you love her?”

“No, no, no!” he exclaimed, as he tried to make her rise.  “I swear to you that I do not.”

She reached up her hand to his mouth and pressed it there tight, stammering:  “Oh, do not lie!  I suffer too much!”

Then, letting her head fall on this man’s knees, she sobbed.

He could see only the back of her neck, a mass of blond hair, mingled with many white threads, and he was filled with immense pity, immense grief.

Seizing that heavy hair in both hands he raised her head violently, turning toward himself two bewildered eyes, from which tears were flowing.  And then on those tearful eyes he pressed his lips many times, repeating: 

“Any!  Any!  My dear, my dear Any!”

Then she, attempting to smile, and speaking in that hesitating voice of children when choking with grief, said: 

“Oh, my friend, only tell me that you still love me a little.”

He embraced her again, even more tenderly than before.

“Yes, I love you, my dear Any.”

She arose, sat down beside him again, seized his hands, looked at him, and said tenderly: 

“It is such a long time that we have loved each other.  It should not end like this.”

He pressed her close to him, asking: 

“Why should it end?”

“Because I am old, and because Annette resembles too much what I was when you first knew me.”

Now it was his turn to close her sad lips with his fingers, saying: 

“Again!  I beg that you will speak no more of that.  I swear to you that you deceive yourself.”

“Oh, if you will only love me a little,” she repeated.

“Yes, I love you,” he said again.

They remained a long time without speaking, hands clasped in hands, deeply moved and very sad.  At last she broke the silence, murmuring: 

“Oh, the hours that remain for me to live will not be gay!”

“I will try to make them sweet to you.”

The shadow of the clouded sky that precedes the twilight by two hours was darkening the drawing-room, burying them little by little in the gray dimness of an autumn evening.

The clock struck.

“It is a long time since we came in here,” said she.  “You must go, for someone might come, and we are not calm.”