Annette was disconcerted.
"But shall we be alone?"
She was disturbed at the idea that she might meet "the other."
Sylvie read her meaning.
"Yes, yes, we shall be alone," she said indulgently, with an ironic emphasis. She calmly explained that her friend had gone to spend two or three days in the country with his family. Annette blushed when she saw that Sylvie had guessed; she did not remember that she had vowed, morning and evening, to give evidence of her moral disapprobation. So far as morality went, she now saw only one thing: "This evening he will not be there."
What happiness! They could spend the whole evening together.
She spoke her thought, clapping her hands. Sylvie balanced on one foot as though she were going to dance, grinned with pleasure, and said: "Everybody's happy." Then, as a man had just come into the shop, she assumed a genteel air, said, "Good-bye, my dear," and was off like a shot.
They met again, some hours later, at the exit of the frivolous swarm. Babbling, peering, trotting along, completing their hair-dressing before a pocket-mirror or before a stray looking-glass, the little seamstresses turned around as they passed and outstared Annette with their tired, sharp, curious eyes; then, ten steps further on, trotting, peering, babbling, they turned about to look at Sylvie who was kissing Annette. And Annette was pained to see that Sylvie had talked.
She took her sister to dine at Boulogne. Sylvie had invited herself. To spare the aunt, who would have exclaimed, "Oh!" and "Ah!" it was arranged on the way that Sylvie should be introduced as a friend. But this didn't prevent her, at the end of dinner, when the old lady was retiring to her own room, conquered by the charms of the little schemer, from calling her "Aunt" as though in familiar playfulness. . . .
Alone, in the great garden, by the light of a summer night. Tenderly intertwined, they walked with little steps, drinking in the fragrance of the weary flowers, exhaled at the close of a fine day. Like the flowers, their souls exhaled their secrets. This time Sylvie responded to Annette's questions, hiding little. She told the story of her life from infancy; and, first of all, her memories of her father. They spoke of him now without embarrassment, and with no mutual envy; he belonged to them both, and they judged him with an indulgent, ironic smile, as a big, amusing, charming fellow, not very substantial, not very well-behaved. . . . (All men are the same!) They bore him no ill-will. . . .