"Where are we going?"
They stopped, amused to find that in the midst of their chattering they had lost their way. Sylvie, clutching Annette, said:
"Let's lunch together."
Annette demurred,—(the unexpected charmed her, but embarrassed her a little too: she was methodical),—mentioning her old aunt, who was waiting for her. But Sylvie was not bothered by these trifling details: she had got hold of Annette, and she wasn't going to let her go. She made her telephone her aunt from a public station, and led her to a creamery which she knew. For the two young girls, and particularly for Annette, it was an outing, this little luncheon to which Sylvie insisted on treating her more fortunate sister. (Annette understood why.) Annette found everything exquisite. She went into ecstasies over the bread, over the well done cutlet. And, last of all, there were strawberries in cream on which they regaled themselves, licking them with their tongues.
But their tongues were even more occupied in talking than in eating. They spoke, however, of only insignificant things, drinking each other in, their eyes, their voices, and their radiance. Instinct has its roads, the shortest and the best. The time had not come to touch on essential subjects. They circled around, circled joyously, like those buzzing wasps that turn ten times around a plate before alighting. They did not alight. . . .
Sylvie stood up, and said: "Now it's time to go to work."
Annette assumed the dashed expression of a child abruptly robbed of its dessert, and exclaimed: "It has been so nice! I haven't had enough."
"Nor I," replied Sylvie, laughing. "When shall we do it again?"
"The sooner and the longer the better. . . . This ended too soon."
"This evening then. Meet me at the door of the shop at about six."