"You are very witty this evening," said Musette.
"And you very curious," observed Marcel.
"Do no speak so loud, everyone can hear us, and they will take us for two lovers quarrelling."
"It would not be the first time that that happened," said Marcel.
Musette read a challenge in this sentence, and quickly replied, "And it will not perhaps be the last, eh?"
Her words were plain, they whizzed past Marcel's ear like a bullet.
"Splendors of heaven," said he, looking up at the stars, "you are witness that it is not I who opened fire. Quick, my armor."
From that moment the firing began.
It was now only a question of finding some appropriate pretext to bring about an agreement between these two fancies that had just woke up again so lively.
As they walked along, Musette kept looking at Marcel, and Marcel kept looking at Musette. They did not speak, but their eyes, those plenipotentiaries of the heart, often met. After a quarter of an hour's diplomacy this congress of glances had tacitly settled the matter. There was nothing to be done save to ratify it.