“You do not give me your arm to conduct me to the table. If we do not do things seriously and methodically we shall not believe in them, and perhaps the Perigord truffles will change into little black pieces of anything else.”
When they were seated opposite to each other, she continued, jesting:
“My dear doctor, did you go to the representation of Don Juan, on Monday?”
And Saniel, who, in spite of all, had kept a sober face, now laughed loudly.
“Charming!” she cried, clapping her hands. “No more preoccupation; no more cares. Look into my eyes, dear Victor, and think only of the present hour, of the joy of being together, of our love.”
She reached her hand over the table, and he pressed it in his.
“Very well.” The dinner continued gayly, Saniel replying to Phillis’s smiles, who would not permit the conversation to languish. She helped him to each dish, poured out his wine, leaving her chair occasionally to put a piece of wood on the fire, and such shoutings and laughter had never been heard before in that office.
However, she noticed that, little by little, Saniel’s face, that relaxed one moment, was the next clouded by the preoccupation and bitterness that she had tried hard to chase away. She would make a new effort.
“Does not this charming little dinner give you the wish to repeat it?”
“How? Where?”