interested, she looked at Vendale, she grew idle with her needle, she
made false stitches in her work. Their voices sank lower and lower;
their faces bent nearer and nearer to each other as they spoke. And
Madame Dor? Madame Dor behaved like an angel. She never looked round;
she never said a word; she went on with Obenreizer's stockings. Pulling
each stocking up tight over her left arm, and holding that arm aloft from
time to time, to catch the light on her work, there were moments--delicate
and indescribable moments--when Madame Dor appeared to be sitting upside
down, and contemplating one of her own respectable legs, elevated in the
air. As the minutes wore on, these elevations followed each other at
longer and longer intervals. Now and again, the black gauze head-dress
nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself. A little heap of stockings
slid softly from Madame Dor's lap, and remained unnoticed on the floor. A
prodigious ball of worsted followed the stockings, and rolled lazily
under the table. The black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward,
recovered itself, nodded again, dropped forward again, and recovered
itself no more. A composite sound, partly as of the purring of an
immense cat, partly as of the planing of a soft board, rose over the
hushed voices of the lovers, and hummed at regular intervals through the
room. Nature and Madame Dor had combined together in Vendale's
interests. The best of women was asleep.

Marguerite rose to stop--not the snoring--let us say, the audible repose
of Madame Dor. Vendale laid his hand on her arm, and pressed her back
gently into her chair.

"Don't disturb her," he whispered. "I have been waiting to tell you a
secret. Let me tell it now."

Marguerite resumed her seat. She tried to resume her needle. It was