“You do well to wear gloves, madame,” he said.  “It is dog’s weather.”

“I do not wear them for the cold,” she replied.  “I wear them so as not to spoil my hands.”

“Ah! truly!  Very well!  Very well!  May I demand some wood?  Where shall I find it?  I do not wish to derange you.”

She refused his help, and brought wood from the kitchen, counting the logs audibly before him.

“Shall I light the fire now?” she asked.

“I will light it,” he said.

“Give me a match, please.”

As she was arranging the wood and paper, he said:  “Madame, will you listen to me?”

“What is it?”

“Do not be angry,” he said.  “Have I not proved that I am capable of respecting you?  I continue in that respect.  It is with all that respect that I say to you that I love you, madame. ...  No, remain calm, I implore you!” The fact was that Sophia showed no sign of not remaining calm.  “It is true that I have a wife.  But what do you wish ...?  She is far away.  I love you madly,” he proceeded with dignified respect.  “I know I am old; but I am rich.  I understand your character.  You are a lady, you are decided, direct, sincere, and a woman of business.  I have the greatest respect for you.  One can talk to you as one could not to another woman.  You prefer directness and sincerity.  Madame, I will give you two thousand francs a month, and all you require from my shop, if you will be amiable to me.  I am very solitary, I need the society of a charming creature who would be sympathetic.  Two thousand francs a month.  It is money.”

He wiped his shiny head with his hand.

Sophia was bending over the fire.  She turned her head towards him.

“Is that all?” she said quietly.

“You could count on my discretion,” he said in a low voice.  “I appreciate your scruples.  I would come, very late, to your room on the sixth.  One could arrange ...  You see, I am direct, like you.”

She had an impulse to order him tempestuously out of the flat; but it was not a genuine impulse.  He was an old fool.  Why not treat him as such?  To take him seriously would be absurd.  Moreover, he was a very remunerative boarder.

“Do not be stupid,” she said with cruel tranquillity.  “Do not be an old fool.”

And the benign but fatuous middle-aged lecher saw the enchanting vision of Sophia, with her natty apron and her amusing gloves, sweep and fade from the room.  He left the house, and the expensive fire warmed an empty room.

Sophia was angry with him.  He had evidently planned the proposal.  If capable of respect, he was evidently also capable of chicane.  But she supposed these Frenchmen were all alike:  disgusting; and decided that it was useless to worry over a universal fact.  They had simply no shame, and she had been very prudent to establish herself far away on the sixth floor.  She hoped that none of the other boarders had overheard Niepce’s outrageous insolence.  She was not sure if Chirac was not writing in his room.