And being perfectly sure that she would not yield, that she would be stupid to the last, she was smiling, curling her pale lips, when she heard Annette's impetuous steps in the hall. She recognized them immediately, and bounded to her feet.
"Annette was coming back! . . . The darling girl! . . ."
She hadn't waited for her. . . . Annette was certainly "the best ever! . . ."
Annette was already in the room. Flushed with excitement and with the heat of her journey, she had no idea what she was going to do; but the moment she entered she knew immediately. Suffocated by the furnace-like atmosphere which pervaded the half-darkened room, she was again seized by a passionate anger. She marched up to Sylvie, who flung herself on her neck; she seized the girl's damp shoulders in impatient hands, and, without responding to her kisses, she said in an exasperated voice:
"I'm taking you away. . . . Get dressed! And don't argue!"
Sylvie argued just the same, in order not to lose the habit. She made a protesting face. But she surrendered herself. Annette imperiously dressed her, put on her shoes, buttoned her blouse, abruptly clapped her hat on her head, shoved her about like a parcel. Sylvie kept saying, "No, no, no," uttering indignant little cries for form's sake; but she was delighted at being bullied. When Annette had finished, Sylvie seized both her hands and kissed them, leaving the mark of her teeth upon them; then, laughing happily, she said:
"There's nothing else to do. . . . Madame Tempest! I surrender. . . . Carry me off!"
Annette carried her off. She had taken the girl's arm in her strong hands, that gripped like a vise. They got into a taxi. When they arrived, Sylvie said to Annette:
"Now I can tell you: well . . . I was dying to come."
"Why were you so bad?" demanded Annette, grumbling and happy.