"Darling," Annette replied, "your happiness is mine, and you know it."
But she was suffering, and Sylvie was too.
"It is not my fault," she protested. "I love you tremendously, I swear!"
"Yes, dearest, I know that."
Annette was smiling, but she heaved another deep sigh. Sylvie, still on her knees, took her sister's face between her hands and put her own close to it.
"I forbid you to sigh! . . . Villain! If you sigh like that I sha'nt be able to leave. I'm not a little wretch."
"No, darling, you aren't. . . . It was wrong of me, and I won't do it any more. But I wasn't blaming you. It's because we are leaving each other."
"Leaving each other! . . . The idea! . . . Naughty girl! We shall see each other every day. You will come, and I shall come. You will keep my room for me. Were you going to presume, by any chance, to take it away from me? No, no, it's mine, and I won't give it back. When I am tired, I count on coming here to be petted. And you know, some evenings when you aren't expecting me, I shall arrive at the most unreasonable hours; I have a key, I shall come in and surprise you. . . . Beware if you play any tricks! . . . You will see, you will see, we shall love each other all the better. . . . Leave each other! Do you think that I would want to leave you, that I could get along without my pretty Annette!"
"Oh! the wheedler, the little rascal!" said Annette, laughing, "how well she knows how to cajole one! The damned little liar!"
"Annette! Don't swear!" exclaimed Sylvie severely.