They recalled to one another their old life, the songs of Musette and the songs of Mimi, nights passed without sleep, idle mornings, and dinners only partaken of in dreams.

One by one they hummed over in these recolletive ducts all the bygone hours, and they usually wound up by saying that after all they were still happy to find themselves together, their feet on the fender, stirring the December log, smoking their pipes, and having as a pretext for open conversation between them that which they whispered to themselves when alone--that they had dearly loved these beings who had vanished, bearing away with them a part of their youth, and that perhaps they loved them still.
One evening when passing along the Boulevard, Marcel perceived a few paces ahead of him a young lady who, in alighting from a cab, exposed the lower part of a white stocking of admirable shape.

The very driver himself devoured with his eyes this charming gratification in excess of his fare.
"By Jove," said Marcel.

"That is a neat leg, I should like to offer it my arm.

Come, now, how shall I manage to accord it?
Ha! I have it--it is a fairly novel plan.