"But I promised to come and knock at your door myself, so you might have slept without any anxiety."
"That's so, but to tell you the truth, Thérèse, I was regularly upset and excited by the thought of papa arriving this morning."
They had both finished breakfast, and Thérèse got up.
"Shall we start?" she asked.
"Yes."
Thérèse opened the hall door, and the two young people went down the flight of steps leading to the garden. The girl had thrown a big cloak over her shoulders, and she inhaled the pure morning air with keen delight.
"I love going out in the early morning," she declared.
"Well, I don't like it at all," Charles Rambert confessed with characteristic candour. "Good Lord, how cold it is! And it is still pitch dark!"
"Surely you are not going to be frightened?" said Thérèse teasingly.
Charles Rambert made an irritable movement of vexation and surprise.