"Your idea is charming, but, dear, really I am ashamed; I am in my dressing-gown."
"Take off your dressing-gown if it incommodes you, Monsieur, but don't leave this chicken wing on my hands. I want to serve you myself." And, rising, she turned her sleeves up to the elbow, and placed her table napkin on her arm.
"It is thus that the waiters at the restaurant do it, is it not?"
"Exactly; but, waiter, allow me at least to kiss your hand."
"I have no time," said she, laughing, sticking the corkscrew into the neck of the bottle. "Chambertin—it is a pretty name; and then do you remember that before our marriage (how hard this cork is!) you told me that you liked it on account of a poem by Alfred de Musset? which, by the way, you have not let me read yet. Do you see the two little Bohemian glasses which I bought expressly for this evening? We will drink each other's health in them."
"And his, too, eh?"
"The heir's, poor dear love of an heir! I should think so. And then I will put away the two glasses against this time next year; they shall be our Christmas Eve glasses? Every year we will sup like this together, however old we may get."
"But, my dear, how about the time when we have no longer any teeth?"
"Well, we will sup on good strong soups; it will be very nice, all the same. Another piece, please, with some of the jelly. Thanks."
As she held out her plate I noticed her arm, the outline of which was lost in lace.