Toward one in the morning, in the great bed of the Venice point draperies, Nana and the count lay still awake.

He had returned to her that evening after a three days sulking fit.

The room, which was dimly illumined by a lamp, seemed to slumber amid a warm, damp odor of love, while the furniture, with its white lacquer and silver incrustations, loomed vague and wan through the gloom.

A curtain had been drawn to, so that the bed lay flooded with shadow.

A sigh became audible; then a kiss broke the silence, and Nana, slipping off the coverlet, sat for a moment or two, barelegged, on the edge of the bed.