flashed through her mind, the smile broke into a laugh, which, for all its violence, seemed somehow tinged with shyness. Grown calmer, she asked.

"I'd like to know ... to know.... I'd like to know your name."

M. Hervart was nonplussed.

"My name? But ... Ah, I see ... the other one."

He hesitated. This name, the sound of which he had hardly heard since his mother's death, was so unfamiliar to him that he felt a certain embarrassment at uttering it. He signed himself simply "Hervart." All his friends railed him by this name, for none had known him in the intimacy of the family; even his mistresses had never murmured any other. Besides, women prefer to make use of appellations suitable to every one in general, such as "wolf," or "pussy-cat," or "white rabbit"—M. Hervart, who was thin, had been generally called "wolf."

"Xavier," he said at last. Rose seemed satisfied.

She began eating blackberries as she had done the day before. M. Hervart—just as he had done yesterday, opened his magnifying glass; he counted the black spots on the back of a lady-bird, coccinella septempunctata; there were only six.

In the palm of her little hand, well smeared already with purple, Rose placed a fine blackberry and held it out to M. Hervart. As he did not lift his head, but still sat there, one eye shut, the other absorbed in what he was looking at, she said gently, in a voice without affection, a voice that was deliciously natural:

"Xavier!"

M. Hervart felt an intense emotion. He looked at Rose with surprised and troubled eyes. She was still holding out her hand. He ate the blackberry in a kiss and then repeated several times in succession, "Rose, Rose...."

"How pale you are!" she said equally moved.

She stepped back, leant against the wall. M. Hervart took a step forward. They were standing now, looking into one another's eyes. Very serious, Rose waited. M. Hervart said:

"Rose, I love you."

She hid her face in her hands. M. Hervart dared not speak or move. He looked at the hands that hid Rose's face.

When she uncovered her face, it was grave and her eyes were wet. She said nothing, but went off and picked a blackberry as though nothing had happened. But instead of eating it, she threw it aside and, instead of coming back to M. Hervart, she walked away.

M. Hervart felt chilled. He stood looking at her sadly, as she smoothed the folds of her dress and set her hat straight.

When she reached the corner by the lilac bushes, Rose stopped, turned round and blew a kiss, then, taking flight, she disappeared in the direction of the house.

The scene had lasted two or three minutes; but in that little space, M. Hervart had lived a great deal. It had been the most moving instant of his life; at least he could not remember having known one like it. At the sound of that name, Xavier, almost blotted from his memory, a host of charming moments from the past had entered his heart; he thought of his mother's love, of his first declaration, his first caresses. He found himself once more at the outset of life and as incapable of mournful thoughts as at twenty.

His whole manner suddenly changed. He hoisted himself on to the terrace and, sitting on the edge in the dry grass, lit a cigarette and looked at the world without thinking of anything at all.

CHAPTER V

Their rapid intimacy did not leave off growing during the following days. M. Des Boys never left the workmen who were making the new paths and from moment to moment he would call his daughter or M. Hervart, soliciting their approval.

In the afternoons they would go and look at one of the castles in the neighbourhood.

They saw Martinvast, towers, chapel, Gothic arches, ingeniously adapted so as to cover, without spoiling their lines, the flimsy luxury of modern times. Tourlaville, though less old, looked more decayed under its cloak of ivy. M. Hervart admired the great octagonal tower, the bold lines of the inward-curving roofs. They saw Pepinbast, a thing of lace-work and turrets, florid with trefoils and pinnacles. They saw Chiflevast, a Janus, Gothic on one side and Louis XIV on the other.

Nacqueville is old in parts; the main block seems to be contemporary with Richelieu; as a whole, it is imposing, a building to which each generation has added its own life without hiding the distant origins.

Vast, which looks quite modern, occupies a pleasing site by the falls of the Saire. It seemed more human than the others, whose hugeness and splendour they had admired without a wish to possess. Here one could give play to one's desire.

"All the same," said M. Hervart, "it looks too much like a big cottage."

M. Des Boys resolved to have a cascade at Robinvast. It was a pity that he had nothing better than a stream at his disposal.

They returned by La Pernelle, from which one can see all the eastern part of the Hague, from Gatteville to St. Marcouf, a great sheet of emerald green, bordered, far away by a ribbon of blue sea.

They made a halt. Rose picked some heather, with which she filled M. Hervart's arms. The eagerness of the air lit up her eyes, fired her cheeks.

"Isn't it lovely, my country?"

A cloud hid the sun. Colour paled away from the scene; a shadow walked across the sea, quenching its brilliance; but southward, towards the isles of St. Marcouf, it was still bright.

"A sad thought crossing the brow of the sea," said M. Hervart. "But look...."

Everything had suddenly lit up once again.

Rose blew kisses into space.

They had to go back towards St. Vast, where they had hired the carriage. Thence, traveling by the little railway which follows the sea for a space before it turns inland under the apple trees, they arrived at Valognes.

They dined at the St. Michel hotel. M. Des Boys was bored; he had begun to find the excursion rather too long. But there were still a lot of fine buildings to be looked at, Fontenay, Flamanville.... However, those didn't mean such long journeys.

"We have still got to go," said he, "to Barnavast, Richemont, the Hermitage and Pannelier. That can be done in one afternoon."

They did not get back to Robinvast till very late. The darkness in the carriage gave M. Hervart his opportunity; his leg came into contact with Rose's; under pretext of steadying the bundle of heather which Rose was balancing on her knee, their hands met for an instant.

Mme. Des Boys was waiting for them, rather anxiously. She kissed her daughter almost frenziedly. Enervated, Rose burst out laughing, said she wanted something to drink and, having drunk expressed a wish for food.

"That's it," said M. Hervart. "Let's have supper."

He checked himself:

"I was only joking; I'm not in the least hungry."

But Rose found the idea amusing; she went in search of food, bringing into the drawing-room every kind of object, down to a bottle of sparkling cider she had discovered in a cupboard.

"Hervart's a boy of twenty-five," said M. Des Boys as he watched his friend helping Rose in her preparations. "I shall go to bed."

"At twenty-five," said Hervart, "one doesn't know what to do with one's life. One has all the trumps in one's hand, but one plays one's cards haphazard, and one loses."

"Does he talk of playing now?" said M. Des Boys, who was half asleep. Rose burst out laughing.

"Are you really going to bed?" asked Mme. Des Boys; she looked tired. "I suppose I must stay here."

But she was soon bored. It was half past twelve. She tried to get her daughter to come.

"Ten minutes more, mother."

"All right, I'll leave you. I shall expect you in ten minutes."

M. Hervart got up.

"I give you ten minutes. Be indulgent with the child. All this fresh air has gone to her head."

M. Hervart felt embarrassed. A week ago such a tête-a-tête would have seemed the most innocent and perhaps, too, the most tedious of things.

"I really don't know