When the toast was done and the tea made, some whim led her to change her tunic for a white jersey newly back from the wash, to put on the old dancing shoes of Metz—and not until her hair was carefully brushed to match this gaiety did she draw up the armchair with the broken leg, and prop it steadily beside the tea-table.
But—
Who was that knocking on the door in the street?
One of the Section coming on a message? The brigadier to tell her that she had some last duty still?
"Shall I go to the window?" (creeping nearer to it). Then, with a glance back at the tea-table, "No, let them knock!"
But how they knocked! Persistent, gentle—could one sit peacefully at tea so called and so besought! She went up to the blue curtains, and standing half-concealed, saw the concierge brooding in the sunlight of her window-sill.
"Is nobody there?" said a light voice in the hidden street below, and at that she peered cautiously over the edge of the stonework, and saw a pale young man in grey before the door.
She watched him. She watched him gravely, for he had come too late. But tenderly, for she had been in love with him. The concierge raised her two black brows in her expressive face and looked upwards. Her look said: "Why don't you let him in?"
Yet Fanny stood inactive, her hands resting on the sun-warmed stone.
"Julien is here—is here! And does not know that I go to-morrow!"