Odette enchanted Annette by her fondling ways, her little confidences, her endless prattle. Annette had been deprived of this. Marc had the passionate temperament of his mother, but he knew better how to repress it; he did not like to surrender himself, especially to those who were closest to him, for they abused his confidence. With strangers it was less dangerous, for they misunderstood you anyway. Odette, like Sylvie, had endearing, expansive ways, but she had a very loving heart; she said out loud what Annette longed to hear. When the sly little creature perceived this, she doubled the dose; she awakened the echo of what Annette had thought as a child. At least, Annette imagined this, and she loved her partly because of this suggestion. Listening to her, she dreamed of her own early years which she unconsciously falsified, for she threw into them the burning clearness of her thoughts of to-day. These blessed Sunday mornings! The little girl lay in the big bed. (It was a holiday for her to spend the night nestling in the arms of her aunt, who received the thumps from her feet without flinching and was afraid to breathe lest she should awaken her.) She watched Annette dressing; she chattered like a sparrow. She was sole mistress of the bed, and, having affirmed her possession of it, she stretched across it and carried on while her aunt's back was turned. But Annette, arranging her hair before the mirror, laughed as she saw in its depths the little bare legs in the air and the rough brown head on the pillow. This attitude did not prevent Odette from following each of her gestures and making comic observations on her toilet. Amid her prattle the child made grave reflexions that were most unexpected and irrelevant and made Annette prick up her ears: "What did you say? Say it again." She could not remember. . . . So she made up something else, not as good as the first thing she had said. Or, more often, she was seized with a sudden transport of affection. "Aunt Annette! Aunt Annette!" "Yes, what is it?" "I love you. . . . Heavens and earth, how I love you!" Annette laughed at the energy she put into it. "Impossible!" "Oh, I love you madly!" (For, sincere as she was, she was also a born actress.) "Nonsense! I like it better without the madness." "Aunt Annette, I want to hug you!" "Just a minute." "Right away. I want to. Come here, come here!" "Yes." She calmly finished combing her hair. Odette turned over in bed in a pet, throwing the bedclothes in all directions. "Ah, that woman has no heart." Annette burst out laughing, dropped her comb, ran to the bed. "Little masquerader, where did you pick that up?" Odette hugged her furiously. "Come, come, you're suffocating me. See, you've pulled my hair down again. I shall never manage to get dressed to-day. You monster, I don't want to have anything more to do with you!" The little girl's voice became anxious; she was on the point of crying.