He laughed. "Hurry, or you will faint with hunger. Put it away and come, just as you are, to Moitriers, up into the balcony. I am going there first to order a wonderful dinner."
In a quarter of an hour they were sitting behind the wooden balustrade of the balcony at Moitriers—the only diners on the little landing that overhung the one fashionable restaurant in Metz. It was a quarter to nine; down below, the room, which was lined with mirrors set in gilt frames, was filled with light; knives and forks still tapped upon the plates, but the hour being late many diners leant across the strewn tablecloths and talked, or sat a little askew in their chairs and listened. A hum filled the warm air, and what was garish below, here, behind the balustrade, became filtered and strained to delicate streaks and bars of light which crossed and recrossed their cloth, their hands, their faces—what was noisy below was here no more than a soft insect bustle, a murmurous background to their talk.
The door of the balcony opened behind them, and Madame Berthe, the proprietress herself, moved at their side; her old-fashioned body, shaped like an hour-glass, was clothed in rucked black silk, which flowed over her like a pigment; flowed from her chin to the floor, upon which it lay stiffly in hills and valleys of braided hem. Her gay gold tooth gleamed, and the gold in her ears wagged, as she fed them gently on omelette, chicken and tinned peas, and a soufflé ice.
They talked a little, sleepy after the wind, smiling at each other.
"Don't you want more light than that?" said Madame Berthe, coming in again softly with the coffee.
Fanny shook her head. "Not any more than this."
Then they were left alone, stirring the coffee, gazing down between the wooden columns at the diners below.
"Of what are you thinking?" she asked, as a sigh escaped her companion.
"The move to Chantilly. I am so loth to break up all this."
"Break up?"