Annette saw Sylvie, almost as tall as herself (perhaps just as tall) but thin, slender of figure, with a head that was small for her body, now half-naked under her peignor, and a throat that was slight but plump, while her arms too were plump: balancing herself on her little rump, she sat with her hands clasped over her round knees. Round too were her forehead and her chin; her little nose turned up; her light brown hair grew low on the temples and curled over the cheeks, and little wandering hairs appeared on the nape and the white, very white and slender, neck. A hot-house plant. The two profiles of her face were asymmetrical: the right-hand one was languorous, sentimental,--a sleeping cat; the left-hand one, malicious, watchful,--a biting cat. When she spoke, her upper lip drew back over laughing teeth. And Annette was thinking: "Beware of her bite!" How different they were! . . . And yet at the first glance both had recognized the expression, the clear eyes, the forehead, the wrinkle at the corner of the mouth,--the father. . . . Annette, frightened and stiff, took her courage in her hands and, in a pale voice that was chilled by excess of emotion, she told who she was, her name. Sylvie let her speak without ceasing to stare at her; then, calmly, with a slightly cruel smile of her curled upper lip, she said: "I knew it." Annette started. "How?" "I've seen you before, often, with father. . . ." Before those last words there was an imperceptible hesitation. Perhaps she had been going to say "_my_ father." But she felt an ironic pity for Annette's glance that read her lips. Annette understood, averted her eyes, and blushed, humiliated. Sylvie missed none of it; she took a leisurely delight in Annette's embarrassment. She continued to speak without haste, studiedly. She said that she had been in the church, at the funeral service, in one of the aisles, and that she had seen everything. Her singsong, rather nasal voice reeled off her narrative with no show of emotion. But if Sylvie knew how to see, Annette knew how to hear; and when the girl had finished, Annette, raising her eyes, asked her: "You loved him very much?" The eyes of the two sisters exchanged a caress. But this lasted for a moment only. Already a jealous shadow had clouded Annette's expression, and she continued: "He loved you very much." She sincerely wished to please Sylvie, but she could not help a shade of spite creeping into her voice. Sylvie thought that she could sense a patronising tone. Immediately her paws showed their little claws, and she said spiritedly: "Oh! yes, he loved me tremendously!" She made a little pause; then, with a complacent air, let fly: "And he was _very_ fond of you, too. He often told me so." Annette's passionate hands, her large nervous hands, trembled and clasped each other. Sylvie watched them. With contracted throat, Annette asked: "He spoke to you of me, often?" "Often," repeated the innocent Sylvie.