“I believe you that it is chic!” said the landlady, sturdily.

“It is charming,” Sophia murmured politely.

“And then a quite little salad!” said the landlord.

“But that—­that is still more striking!” said Chirac.

The landlord winked.  The fact was that the commerce which resulted in fresh green vegetables in the heart of a beleagured town was notorious.

“And then also a quite little cheese!” said Sophia, slightly imitating the tone of the landlord, as she drew from the inwardness of her cloak a small round parcel.  It contained a Brie cheese, in fairly good condition.  It was worth at least fifty francs, and it had cost Sophia less than two francs.  The landlady joined the landlord in inspecting this wondrous jewel.  Sophia seized a knife and cut a slice for the landlady’s table.

“Madame is too good!” said the landlady, confused by this noble generosity, and bearing the gift off to her table as a fox-terrier will hurriedly seek solitude with a sumptuous morsel.  The landlord beamed.  Chirac was enchanted.  In the intimate and unaffected cosiness of that interior the vast, stupefied melancholy of the city seemed to be forgotten, to have lost its sway.

Then the landlord brought a hot brick for the feet of madame.  It was more an acknowledgment of the slice of cheese than a necessity, for the restaurant was very warm; the tiny kitchen opened directly into it, and the door between the two was open; there was no ventilation whatever.

“It is a friend of mine,” said the landlord, proudly, in the way of gossip as he served an undescribed soup, “a butcher in the Faubourg St. Honore, who has bought the three elephants of the Jardin des Plantes for twenty-seven thousand francs.”

Eyebrows were lifted.  He uncorked the champagne.

As she drank the first mouthful (she had long lost her youthful aversion for wine), Sophia had a glimpse of herself in a tilted mirror hung rather high on the opposite wall.  It was several months since she had attired herself with ceremoniousness.  The sudden unexpected vision of elegance and pallid beauty pleased her.  And the instant effect of the champagne was to renew in her mind a forgotten conception of the goodness of life and of the joys which she had so long missed.

V

At half-past two they were alone in the little salon of the restaurant, and vaguely in their dreamy and feverish minds that were too preoccupied to control with precision their warm, relaxed bodies, there floated the illusion that the restaurant belonged to them and that in it they were at home.  It was no longer a restaurant, but a retreat and shelter from hard life.  The chef and his wife were dozing in an inner room.  The champagne was drunk; the adorable cheese was eaten; and they were sipping Marc de Bourgogne.  They sat at right angles to one another, close to one