When they were in the house: "Gracious, how cold it is!" she exclaimed.
And yet a great fire was blazing in each of the two rooms, but they had not been lighted until past noon and had not had time to dry the damp walls, and shivers ran through her frame. "I think that I will not take off my furs just yet," she added. She only unbuttoned her outer garment and threw it open, disclosing her warm costume and her plume-decked corsage, like a bird of passage that never remains long in one place.
He seated himself beside her.
"There is to be a delightful dinner at my house to-night," she said, "and I am enjoying it in anticipation."
"Who are to be there?"
"Why, you, in the first place; then Prédolé, whom I have so long wanted to know."
"Ah! Prédolé is to be there?"
"Yes; Lamarthe is to bring him."
"But Prédolé is not the kind of a man to suit you, not a bit! Sculptors in general are not so constituted as to please pretty women, and Prédolé less so than any of them."
"Oh, my friend, that cannot be. I have such an admiration for him!"