But Sylvie's look froze her. She did not dare. She felt intuitively that if Sylvie spoke she would say something irreparable. It was much better to remain silent. Annette felt in her sister a wish to be unjust against which she could do nothing. One day Sylvie said to Annette that she wanted to have a talk with her. Annette, with her heart beating, wondered, "What is she going to say to me?" Sylvie said nothing that could offend Annette, not a word of her grievances. She talked to her about getting married. Annette gently changed the subject. But Sylvie was insistent and suggested a match: a friend of Leopold, a sort of business agent, a journalist in some vague way, with a certain style, the manners of a man of the world, and varied, too varied, resources, who sold automobiles and wrote advertisements, acted as an intermediary between the manufacturers and their customers in clubs and drawing-rooms, and received commissions from both sides. It was a proof that Sylvie had changed greatly in relation to her sister that she could offer her such a choice, and Annette was aware of the lack of affection this deliberate slight indicated. With a gesture she stopped the description of the candidate. Sylvie took it in bad part, asking if Annette found the suggested suitor beneath her pretensions. Annette said that she had no pretensions except to live alone. Sylvie replied that this was easy to say, that it was all very well to want to live alone, but that first one had to have the power to do so. "But do you think I can't?" "You? I challenge you to do it!" "You are unjust. I can earn my living." "With the help of other people." In the tone, even more than in the words, there was something intentionally wounding. Annette blushed, but she did not take her up; she did not want to bring about an open quarrel. During the following weeks, Sylvie's ill-humor was very noticeable. Any pretext served her, the least disagreement in conversation, a detail in dress, Annette's lateness at dinner, the noise little Marc made on the stairs. They never went out together any more. If they had arranged for a walk on Sunday, she set out with Leopold, without saying anything to Annette, using the latter's unpunctuality as an excuse. Or at the last moment she would call off the party they had planned. Annette saw that her presence was a burden. She spoke timidly of looking for an apartment in some other quarter that would be less remote from her pupils. She hoped they would protest, beg her to remain. They pretended not to have heard her. She was cowardly; she stayed on. She clung to this affection which she felt was escaping her. It was not only Sylvie whom she did not want to leave. She was attached to little Odette. She endured more than one painful affront without seeming to notice it. She lengthened the intervals between her visits.