She noticed the tremor and liked it. In the lightest and airiest of flirtations the ardent and unsteady note in a man's voice appeals to any woman to continue and finish his subjugation.
"As for the cellar," she said, "it is true that one can get into the cabaret garden that way. But, Monsieur, do you imagine that a dark, damp, ghostly and pitch-black cellar appeals to any woman?"
"Is the cellar so frightful a place, Mademoiselle?"
"Figure it to yourself!—Some twenty stone steps from the pantry yonder"—She nodded her head toward the battered swinging door of leather.—"And then more steps, down, down, down!—Into darkness and dampness where there are only wine casks and kegs and bottles and mushrooms and rats and ghosts——"
"What of it—if, as you say, the stars are shining on the river——"
"Merci! A girl must certainly be in love to venture through that cellar! And a man, too!"
"Try me. I'll go!"
The girl laughed:
"You! Are you, then, in love already?"
"I should like to prove it. Where is that terrible cellar?"