The kind-hearted creature clapped her hands for joy, and sitting down on a low chair at the foot of the bedstead, said, in the tone that we use to a spoilt child: 'You mustn't get up yet . . . Françoise will bring you your coffee. I thought that you would wake up about ten, and I had just ground it when you knocked. You shall have it quite fresh.' The maid entering at that moment, holding in her big red hands the tray with its little load of china, Emilie continued: 'I will serve you myself. Fresneau has gone to take Constant to school--so we have plenty of time--tell me all about it.' And René was obliged to give her a full account of the _soirée_, without omitting any details. 'What did Larcher say?' asked his sister. 'What was the courtyard like? And the hall? What did the Comtesse wear?' She was highly amused by the fantastic metaphors of Madame de Sermoises, and cried: 'What a wretch!' when she heard the epigram of the unsuccessful playwriter's wife; she laughed at the ignorance of pretty Madame Ethorel, and was indignant at Colette's cruelty. But when the poet attempted to describe the dainty features of Madame Moraines, and to give her an idea of their talk at supper, she felt as though she would have liked to thank the exquisite lady who had thus at the first glance discovered what René really was. The habits she had contracted long years since of seeing everything through her brother's eyes and senses made her the most dangerous of confidantes for the poet. She possessed the same imaginative nature as he himself--an artistic imagination yearning after the beautiful--and, since it was all for another's sake, she gave herself up to it unreservedly. There is a kind of impersonal feminine immorality peculiar to mothers, sisters, and all women in love which ignores the laws of conscience where the happiness of one particular man is at stake. Emilie, who was all self-denial and modesty in what concerned herself, indulged only in dreams of splendour and ambition for her brother, often giving expression to thoughts which René dared hardly formulate. 'Ah! I knew you would succeed,' she cried. 'It's all very well for the Offarels to talk, but your place is not in our modest set. What you writers want is all this grandeur and magnificence. Heavens! how I wish you were rich! But you will be some day. One of these fine ladies will fall in love with you and marry you, and even in a palace you will not cease to be my loving brother, I know. Is it possible for you to go on living like this for ever? Can you fancy yourself in a couple of rooms on the fourth floor with a lot of crying children and a wife with a pair of servant's hands like mine'--holding them out for his inspection--'and being obliged to work by the hour, like a cab-driver, to earn your living? Here, it is true, you have not lived in luxury, but you have had your time to yourself.