This was said in an arm of the Seine just between Briche and the Ile Saint Denis. The girl and the young man who were conversing were in the water. They had been swimming until they were tired, and now, carried along by the current, they had caught hold of a rope which was fastened to one of the large boats stationed along the banks of the island. The force of the water rocked them both gently at the end of the tight, quivering rope. They kept sinking and then rising again. The water was beating against the young girl's breast; it filled out her woollen bathing-dress right up to the neck, while from behind little waves kept dashing over her which a moment later were nothing but dewdrops hanging from her ears. She was rather higher up than the young man and had her arms out of the water, her wrists turned round in order to hold the rope more firmly, and her back against the black wood of the boat. Instinctively she kept drawing back as the young man, swayed by the strong current, approached her. Her whole attitude, as she shrank back, suspended from the rope, reminded one of those sea goddesses which sculptors carve upon galleys. A slight tremor, caused partly by the cold and partly by the movement of the river, gave her something of the undulation of the water. "Ah, now this, for instance," she continued, "cannot be at all proper--to be swimming here with you. If we were at the seaside it would be quite different. We should have just the same bathing costumes as these, and we should come out of a bathing-van just as we have come out of the house. We should have walked across the beach just as we have walked along the river bank, and we should be in the water to the same depth, absolutely like this. The waves would roll us about as this current does, but it would not be the same thing at all; simply because the Seine water is not proper! Oh, dear! I'm getting so hungry--are you?" "Well, I fancy I shall do justice to dinner." "Ah! I warn you that I eat." "Really, mademoiselle?" "Yes, there is nothing poetical about me at meal-times. If you imagine that I have no appetite you are quite mistaken. You are in the same club as my brother-in-law, are you not?" "Yes, I am in M. Davarande's club." "Are there many married men in it?" "Yes, a great many." "How odd! I cannot understand why a man marries. If I had been a man it seems to me that I should never have thought of marrying." "Fortunately you are a woman." "Ah, yes, that's another of our misfortunes, we women cannot stay unmarried. But will you tell me why a man joins a club when he is married?" "Oh, one has to be in a club--especially in Paris. Every man of any standing--if only for the sake of going in there for a smoke." "What! do you mean to say that there are any wives nowadays without smoking-rooms? Why, I would allow--yes, I would allow a halfpenny pipe!" "Have you any neighbours?" "Oh, we don't visit much. There are the Bourjots at Sannois, we go there sometimes."