The actress wore beautiful diamonds." There was a moment's silence.

Poor Frantz had much difficulty in explaining himself.

The words he sought would not come, and then, too, he was afraid.

He fixed the time mentally when he would speak: "When we have passed the Porte Saint-Denis--when we have left the boulevard." But when the time arrived, Sidonie began to talk of such indifferent matters that his declaration froze on his lips, or else it was stopped by a passing carriage, which enabled their elders to overtake them.
At last, in the Marais, he suddenly took courage: "Listen to me, Sidonie--I love you!" That night the Delobelles had sat up very late.
It was the habit of those brave-hearted women to make their working-day as long as possible, to prolong it so far into the night that their lamp was among the last to be extinguished on the quiet Rue de Braque.

They always sat up until the great man returned home, and kept a dainty little supper warm for him in the ashes on the hearth.
In the days when he was an actor there was some reason for that custom; actors, being obliged to dine early and very sparingly, have a terrible gnawing at their vitals when they leave the theatre, and usually eat when they go home.