"Let's lunch together." Annette demurred,--(the unexpected charmed her, but embarrassed her a little too: she was methodical),--mentioning her old aunt, who was waiting for her. But Sylvie was not bothered by these trifling details: she had got hold of Annette, and she wasn't going to let her go. She made her telephone her aunt from a public station, and led her to a creamery which she knew. For the two young girls, and particularly for Annette, it was an outing, this little luncheon to which Sylvie insisted on treating her more fortunate sister. (Annette understood why.) Annette found everything exquisite. She went into ecstasies over the bread, over the well done cutlet. And, last of all, there were strawberries in cream on which they regaled themselves, licking them with their tongues. But their tongues were even more occupied in talking than in eating. They spoke, however, of only insignificant things, drinking each other in, their eyes, their voices, and their radiance. Instinct has its roads, the shortest and the best. The time had not come to touch on essential subjects. They circled around, circled joyously, like those buzzing wasps that turn ten times around a plate before alighting. They did not alight. . . . Sylvie stood up, and said: "Now it's time to go to work." Annette assumed the dashed expression of a child abruptly robbed of its dessert, and exclaimed: "It has been so nice! I haven't had enough." "Nor I," replied Sylvie, laughing. "When shall we do it again?" "The sooner and the longer the better. . . . This ended too soon." "This evening then. Meet me at the door of the shop at about six." Annette was disconcerted. "But shall we be alone?" She was disturbed at the idea that she might meet "the other." Sylvie read her meaning. "Yes, yes, we shall be alone," she said indulgently, with an ironic emphasis. She calmly explained that her friend had gone to spend two or three days in the country with his family. Annette blushed when she saw that Sylvie had guessed; she did not remember that she had vowed, morning and evening, to give evidence of her moral disapprobation. So far as morality went, she now saw only one thing: "This evening _he_ will not be there." What happiness! They could spend the whole evening together. She spoke her thought, clapping her hands. Sylvie balanced on one foot as though she were going to dance, grinned with pleasure, and said: "Everybody's happy." Then, as a man had just come into the shop, she assumed a genteel air, said, "Good-bye, my dear," and was off like a shot.