“There!” said Sophia, “you have lost me a tenant!”
And she insisted, half jocularly and half seriously, that Carlier was leaving because he could not stand Chirac’s infantile conceit. The flat was full of acrimonious words.
On Christmas morning Chirac lay in bed rather late; the newspapers did not appear that day. Paris seemed to be in a sort of stupor. About eleven o’clock he came to the kitchen door.
“I must speak with you,” he said. His tone impressed Sophia.
“Enter,” said she.
He went in, and closed the door like a conspirator. “We must have a little fete,” he said. “You and I.”
“Fete!” she repeated. “What an idea! How can I leave?”
If the idea had not appealed to the secrecies of her heart, stirring desires and souvenirs upon which the dust of time lay thick, she would not have begun by suggesting difficulties; she would have begun by a flat refusal.
“That is nothing,” he said vigorously. “It is Christmas, and I must have a chat with you. We cannot chat here. I have not had a true little chat with you since you were ill. You will come with me to a restaurant for lunch.”
She laughed. “And the lunch of my lodgers?”