"It was delicacy on your part!"
He asked in return:
"Delicacy about what?"
"About what you have done for Arnoux!" said she.
Frederick made a significant gesture. "What do I care about him, indeed? It was for your sake I did it!"
She sent off the child to play with his nurse in the drawing-room. Two or three words passed between them as to their state of health; then the conversation hung fire.
She wore a brown silk gown, which had the colour of Spanish wine, with a paletot of black velvet bordered with sable. This fur made him yearn to pass his hand over it; and her head-bands, so long and so exquisitely smooth, seemed to draw his lips towards them. But he was agitated by emotion, and, turning his eyes towards the door:
"'Tis rather warm here!"
Frederick understood what her discreet glance meant.
"Ah! excuse me! the two leaves of the door are merely drawn together."