They are not very old, but there's no denying they are old bachelors, because in their company you don't feel the torturing constraint and embarrassment which the others make you feel because you're a woman.
When you come, they hold out their hands good-naturedly. Rémy, the great big patient Rémy, takes my hat, my gloves rolled into a ball, and my cloak. He steps on my cloak and is vaguely alarmed. This adds to his confusion, and when he hangs my things on the rack in the hall he is so awkward in his carefulness that my hat rolls to the ground. We sit down and talk of the office—you cannot start by not talking—and when every topic is exhausted, I suggest making tea, a suggestion well worth the making just to rouse the gourmand look in the old boys' eyes. "Oh yes, some tea." You can almost hear them purr.
I busy myself with an ease become superlative. It is possible that for an instant I find myself a woman again between two attentive men, converted into the household goddess—she who performs the rites and dispenses the food and offers the milk, just a thimbleful, while the men's eyes are upon her as she bends over the cups. This constrains my movements and makes me tread more lightly and mince my steps. I scarcely displace the shadows.
My two old friends!
Rémy pursues his reading with a frank absorption which dominates his whole body. His heavy forehead bulges, his clenched fists form two undefined cubes on the page. Migo (when I look at him I call him Migo, too), rolls his cigarette. This evening he is inclined to be talkative. He rubs up his memory:
"The first day you came to the office what a timid manner you had."
The recollections play upon an irresistible note. Rémy emerges from his corner, his good blue eyes rising to the bait; a vision hung on a thread, persons long faded. And it must be confessed that all three of us let ourselves be captured; the same smile widens our features.
The door-bell rings.... Yes, it rang.
The triple peal sends our heads apart. Rémy rises, hostile and resigned. He is always the one to open the door.
Waiting in every circumstance, even when nothing is at stake, is painful. The spirit recoils and contracts, and space is left for thoughts of an inevitable misfortune and for the twinkling vision of the things which disappear. In a single instant life can completely change its aspect....