When the cab stopped, she said:
"You will not be vexed with me, will you, my own Robert, at what I am going to say? Not to-day—to-morrow."
She had considered it necessary to make this sacrifice to the jealous dead.
CHAPTER XII
n the following day, he took her to a furnished room, commonplace but cheerful, which he had selected on the first floor of a house facing the square, near the Bibliothèque Nationale. In the centre of the square stood the basin of a fountain, supported by lusty nymphs. The paths, bordered with laurel and spindlewood, were deserted, and from this little-frequented spot one heard the vast and reassuring hum of the city. The rehearsal had finished very late. When they entered the room the night, already slower to arrive in this season of melting snow, was beginning to cast its gloom over the hangings. The large mirrors of the wardrobe and overmantel were filling with vague lights and shadows. She took off her fur coat, went to look out of the window between the curtains and said:
"Robert, the steps are wet."
He answered that there was no flight of steps, only the pavement and the road, and then another pavement and the railings of the square.