The panels of the room would creak sympathetically to the opening of the entrance-door of the house, the faintest of creaks; people would cross the immense hall to the room in which they plotted; would cross leisurely, with laughter and rustling of garments that after a long time reached my ears in whispers.
Then I should have an access of mad jealousy.

I wanted to be part of her life, but I could not stand that Salon of suspicious conspirators.

What could I do there?
Stand and look at them, conscious that they all dropped their voices instinctively when I came near them?
That was the general tone of that space of time, but, of course, it was not always that.

I used to emerge now and then to breakfast sympathetically with my aunt, sometimes to sit through a meal with the two of them.

I danced attendance on them singly; paid depressing calls with my aunt; calls on the people in the Faubourg; people without any individuality other than a kind of desiccation, the shrivelled appearance and point of view of a dried pippin.