He went on looking and found what he wanted, but when he had found, he started searching again, for he was ashamed of himself. "Perhaps," he thought, answering his own objections, "one may have to behave like a cad in order to be happy. What, shall I submit myself to the prejudices of the world at the moment when life offers to my kisses a virgin who is unaware of them? I will have the courage of my caddishness." Time passed and his eyes examined the heaps of leaves with decreasing interest. His imagination returned pleasantly to the joys of a little before, and he longed to be able to lay his trembling hand once more on Rose's breast and to drink her breath in a kiss. M. Hervart was recovering all his self-possession. He concluded: "Well, it's very curious adventure and one that will increase the sum of my knowledge and of my pleasures." Rose, feeling the pressure of his fingers, had the courage, at last, to look at him. He smiled and she was reassured. "You won't leave me, will you?" she said. "Promise. When we are married well live wherever you like, but till then, I want you near me, in my house, in my garden, my woods, my fields. Do you understand?" "Child, I love you and I understand that you love me too." "Why 'too'? I loved you first; I don't like that word; it expresses a kind of imitation." "It's true," said M. Hervart. "We fell in love simultaneously. But the convention is that the man falls in love first and the woman does no more than consent to his desires." "What can you want that I don't want myself?" "Delicious innocence!" thought M. Hervart. He went on: "But perhaps I want still more intimacy, complete surrender, Rose." "But am I not entirely yours? I want you in exchange, though, Xavier, I want you, all of you." M. Hervart did not know what to say. He became quite shy. This charming ingenuousness troubled his imagination more than the images of pleasure itself. "She doesn't know," he thought. "She hasn't even dreamed of it. What chastity and grace!" He answered: "I belong to you, Rose, with all my heart...." "What were you thinking of a moment ago? You seemed far away." "I was just feeling happy." "You must have had such a lot of happinesses since you began life, Xavier. You have given happiness, received it...." "I have just lived," said M. Hervart. "Yes, and I'm only a girl of twenty." "Think of being twenty!" "If you were twenty, I shouldn't love you." M. Hervart answered only by a smile which he tried to make as young, as delicate as possible. He knew what he would have liked to say, but he felt that he could not say it. Besides, he wondered whether Rose and he were really speaking the same language.