Lilian stretched herself voluptuously, murmured with a magnificent yawn, "Ah! How I have slept!" and, slipping out of bed, padded unshod up the room to Felix, who sat passive in the easy chair. She took the bearings of his shape in the gloom, and dropped lightly on to his knees.
"What am I sitting on?" she exclaimed, startled.
"My newspapers."
Touched by the fact that he had been waiting to read his beloved papers until she should be ready to rise, she threw her arms passionately round his neck and crushed her face into his. Daily it became clearer to her that he adored her; and yet she could scarcely believe it, because she felt so young--even childish--and so crude and insipid. She determined with a whole-souled resolve that renewed itself every hour to stop at nothing to please him.
"Do I make you happy?" she whispered almost inarticulately, her lips being buried in his cheek.
"You do."
After a moment she sprang up, seized her thin, loose, buttonless dressing-gown, and having somehow got into it, opened the window and violently pushed back the shutters. Strong sunlight rushed blazing into the room like an army into a city long besieged and at last fallen. Millions of buoyant motes were revealed, and all the minutest details of the chamber. Lilian looked out. There were the shady gardens of the hotel, the white promenade with strolling visitors in pale costumes, the calm ultramarine Mediterranean, the bandstand far to the right emitting inaudible music, the yellow casino, beyond the casino the jetty with its group of white yachts, and, distant on either side, noble and jagged mountains, some of them snow-capped. Incredible! She heard Felix moving within the room, and turned her head.
"Darling, what are you doing?"
"Ringing for your coffee."
"What time is it?"