"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 what may happen. I must be serious, cold; I must try and look tired and antique...." As soon as she heard her mother's footsteps in the room above the drawing-room, Rose came and sat down close to M. Hervart, put her hands on the arm of his chair. He looked at her, and there was something of madness in his eyes. He turned completely and laid his hands upon the girl's hands. They moved, took his and pressed them, gently. Then, without having had the time to think of what they were doing, they woke up a second later mouth against mouth. This kiss exhausted their emotion. With the same instinctive movement both drew back, but they went on looking at one another. Decidedly, she was very pretty. She, for part, found him admirable, thinking: "I belong to him. I have given him my lips. I am his. What will he do? What shall I do?..." That was just what M. Hervart was wondering--what ought he to do? "What caresses are possible, what won't she object to? I should like to kiss her lips again.... Her eyes? Her neck? Which of the Italian poets was it who said: 'Kiss the arms, the neck, the breasts of your beloved, they will not give you back your kisses. The lips alone,' But I shall have to say something. Of course, I ought to say: 'Je vous aime.' But I don't love her. If I did, I should have said: 'Je t'aime!' and I should have said it without thinking, without knowing. "Rose, I love you." She shut her eyes, laid her head on the arm of the chair; for she was sitting on a low stool. It was the ear that presented itself. M. Hervart kissed her ear slowly, savouring it, kiss by kiss, like an epicure over some choice shell-fish. "She lets me do what I like. It's amusing...." He kissed his way round her ear and halted next to the eye, which was shut. "How soft her eyelid is!" His lips travelled down her nose and settled at the corner of her mouth. Tickled by their touch, she smiled. When he had thoroughly kissed the right side, she offered him the left; then, giving her lips to him frankly, she received his kiss, returned it with all her heart, and got up. She smiled without any embarrassment. She was happy and very little disturbed. "There," she said to herself. "Now I'm married." CHAPTER VI The paths were now visible. One of them, in front of the house, made an oval round a lawn, which looked, at the moment, like a patch of weeds, with all sorts of flowers in the uneven grass--buttercups, moon-daisies, cranes-bill and centaury; there were rushes, too, and nettles, hemlock and plants of lingwort that looked like long thin girls in white hats. Encoignard, the gardener from Valognes, was contemplating this wildness with a melancholy eye: