Probably he understood what impulse had prompted her to terminate
abruptly both laughter and discourse, for he reddened and gazed rather fixedly at the radiator which was now clanking and clinking in a very noisy manner.
"You ought to have a fireplace and an open fire," he said. "It's the cosiest thing on earth—with a cat on the hearth and a big chair and a good book.... Athalie, do you remember that stove? And how I sat there in wet shooting clothes and stockinged feet?"
"Yes," she said, drawing her own bare ones further under her chair.
"Do you know what you looked like to me when you came in so silently, dressed in your red hood and cloak?"
"What did I look like?"
"A little fairy princess."
"I? In that ragged cloak?"
"I didn't see the rags. All I saw was your lithe little fairy figure and your yellow hair and your wonderful dark eyes in the ruddy light from the stove. I tell you, Athalie, I was enchanted."
"How odd! I never dreamed you thought that of me when I stood there looking at you, utterly lost in admiration—"