shoulder at Vendale, and plumped down again. Was she at work? Yes.
Cleaning Obenreizer's gloves, as before? No; darning Obenreizer's
stockings.

The case was now desperate. Two serious considerations presented
themselves to Vendale. Was it possible to put Madame Dor into the stove?
The stove wouldn't hold her. Was it possible to treat Madame Dor, not as
a living woman, but as an article of furniture? Could the mind be
brought to contemplate this respectable matron purely in the light of a
chest of drawers, with a black gauze held-dress accidentally left on the
top of it? Yes, the mind could be brought to do that. With a
comparatively trifling effort, Vendale's mind did it. As he took his
place on the old-fashioned window-seat, close by Marguerite and her
embroidery, a slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no
remark issued from it. Let it be remembered that solid furniture is not
easy to move, and that it has this advantage in consequence--there is no
fear of upsetting it.

Unusually silent and unusually constrained--with the bright colour fast
fading from her face, with a feverish energy possessing her fingers--the
pretty Marguerite bent over her embroidery, and worked as if her life
depended on it. Hardly less agitated himself, Vendale felt the
importance of leading her very gently to the avowal which he was eager to
make--to the other sweeter avowal still, which he was longing to hear. A
woman's love is never to be taken by storm; it yields insensibly to a
system of gradual approach. It ventures by the roundabout way, and
listens to the low voice. Vendale led her memory back to their past
meetings when they were travelling together in Switzerland. They revived
the impressions, they recalled the events, of the happy bygone time.
Little by little, Marguerite's constraint vanished. She smiled, she was