would think that I was everything to her. A little later she treats me like a mere friend of the family..... And it's she who leads me on.... I have never seen that with flirts.... Where can she have learnt it? Women are like the noblemen in Molière's time: they know everything without having been taught anything at all."

M. Hervart weighed down in mind, but light of heart, went up to his room, so as to be able to meditate more at ease. First of all he smarted himself up with some care. He plucked from his beard a hair, which, if not quite silver, was certainly very pale gold. He scented his waistcoat and slipped on his finger an elaborately chased ring.

"It may come in useful when conversation begins to flag."

He was about to begin his meditations, when somebody knocked at the door. Luncheon was ready.

M. Des Boys, despite the disturbance of his plans seemed pleased. A drive, he declared would do him good. He needed an outing; besides he had a right to one.

"I have just finished the ninth panel of my of my life of Sainte Clotilde. It is her entry too the convent of Saint Martin at Tours."

M. Hervart manifested an interest in this composition, which he had admired the previous evening before it had been given the final touches. He hoped to see it soon in its proper frame, with the other panels in Robinvast church.

"There are going to be twelve in all," said M. Des Boys.

"People will come and see them as they do the Life of St. Bruno that used to be at the Chartreux and is now in the Louvre."

"So I hope."

"But they won't come quite so much."

"Yes, Robinvast is rather far. But then who goes to the Louvre? A few artists, a few aimless foreign sightseers. Nobody in France takes an interest in art."

"Nobody in the world does," said M. Hervart, "except those who live by it."

"What about those who die of it?" asked Rose.

Mme. Des Boys looked at her daughter with some surprise:

"I have never heard that painting was a dangerous industry."

"When one believes in it, it is," said M. Hervart.

"What, not dangerous?" said M. Des Boys "What about white lead?"

"One must believe," said Rose, looking at M. Hervart.

"This just shows," M. Des Boys went on, "what the public's point of view in this matter is. My wife's marvellously absurd remark exactly represents their feelings."

There followed a series of pointless anecdotes on Mme. Des Boys' habitual absence of mind. M. Hervart very nearly forgot to laugh: he was thinking of what Rose had just said.

"Rose," said M. Des Boys, "ask Hervart if we weren't believers when we went around the Louvre. We were in a fever of enthusiasm. Hervart is my pupil; I formed his taste for beauty. Unluckily I left Paris and he has turned out badly. I remain faithful, in spite of everything."

"But" said M. Hervart, "faithfulness only begins at the moment of discovering one's real vocation."

Rose seemed to have given these words a meaning which M. Hervart had not consciously intended they should have. Two eyes, full of an infinite tenderness, rested on his like a caress.

"It's as though I had made a declaration," he thought. "I must be mad. But how can one avoid phrases which people go and take as premeditated allusions?"

However, he found the game amusing. It was possible in this way to speak in public and to give utterance to one's real feelings under cover of the commonplaces of conversation. Rose had given him the example; he had followed her without thinking, but this docility was a serious symptom.

"I am lost. Here I am in process of falling in love."

But like those drunkards who, feeling the moment of intoxication at hand, desire to control themselves, but must still obey their cravings because they have been so far weakened by the very sensation that now awakens them to a consciousness of their state, M. Hervart, while deciding that he ought to struggle, yielded.

He drank off a whole glass of wine and said:

"It is easy to make a mistake at one's first entry into life, and to go on making it long after. I am still very fond of art, but I was never meant to do more than pay her visits. We are friends, not a married couple. I have built my house on other foundations; it may be worth much or little, but I live in it faithfully. One can only stick to what one loves. To keep a treasure, you must have found it first."

He had spoken with passion.

"What eloquence!" said M. Des Boys.

All of a sudden, Rose began to laugh, a laugh so happy, so full of gratitude, that M. Hervart could make no mistake about its meaning.

"You're being laughed at, my poor friend," M. Des Boys went on.

At this mistake, Rose's laughter redoubled. It became gay, childish, uncontrollable.

"This is something," said Mme. Des Boys, "which will console you, I hope. But what a little demon my daughter is!"

Out of pity for her mother, Rose made an effort to restrain herself. She succeeded after two or three renewed spasms and said, addressing herself to M. Hervart:

"What do you think of the little demon? Are you afraid?"

"More than you think."

"So am I; I'm afraid of myself."

"That's a sensible remark," said Mme. Des Boys. "Come now, behave."

The home-made cake being approved of, she began giving the recipe. A meal rarely passed without Mme. Des Boys' revealing some culinary mystery.

The carriage drove past the windows, and lunch ended almost without further conversation. Rose had become dreamy. M. Hervart's conclusion was:

"Our affair has made the most terrifying progress in these few seconds."

CHAPTER III

He went on with his meditations in the little wagonette which carried them to Couville station. Rose was sitting opposite; their feet, naturally, came into contact.

M. Des Boys, who owned several farms, stopped to examine the state of the crops. In some of the fields the corn had been beaten down. He got up on the box beside the driver to ask him whether it was the same throughout the whole district. He was very disquieted.

M. Hervart stretched out his legs, so that he held the girl's knees between his own. She smiled. M. Hervart, a little oppressed by his emotions, dared not speak. He took her hand and kissed it.

All of a sudden, Rose exclaimed: "We have forgotten the microscope!"

"So we have! our pretext. What will become of us?"

"But do we need a pretext, now?"

M. Hervart renewed the pressure of his prisoning knees. That was his first answer.

"We're conspirators, Rose," he then said. "It's serious."

"I hope so."

"We have been conspirators for a long time."

"Since this morning, yes."

She blushed a little.

"From that moment," M. Hervart went on, "when you said, 'One must believe.'"

"I said what I thought."

"It's what I think too."

"In this way," he said to himself, "I say what I ought to say without going too far. 'Oh, if only I dared!"

Meanwhile, he was disturbed by the thought of the microscope.

"I shall buy one," he said, "and leave it with you. It will be of use to me when I come again."

"Stop," said Rose; her voice was low, but its tone was violent. "When you talk of coming again, you're talking of going away."

M. Hervart had nothing to answer. He got out of the difficulty by renewing the pressure of his legs.

They reached the little lonely station. The train came in, and a quarter of an hour later they were in Cherbourg.

M. Des Boys at once announced his intention of going to see the museum. He wanted to look at a few masterpieces, he said, so that he might once more compare his own art with that of the great men. M. Hervart protested. For him, a holiday consisted in getting away from museums. Furthermore, he regarded this particular collection, with its list of great names, as being in large part apocryphal.

"If the catalogue of the Louvre is false, as