"Of course there has been no opportunity--they have never met, except in public--but if it were not entirely out of the question--" Mademoiselle Moineau stammered, blushing, conscious, though she would never confess it, of having nodded one day for a few minutes under a certain mulberry tree. "The other night, madame, at the dinner party, did it strike you that a certain gentleman was a little forward, a little intimate--" Madame de Sainfoy lifted her brows and shrugged her shoulders. "You mean young La Marinière? Bah! nonsense, mademoiselle. Only a little cousin, and a quite impossible one. We cannot keep him quite at arm's length, because of his father, who has been so excellent. But if you really think that Hélène has any such absurdity in her head--" "Oh, madame, I do not say so. I have no positive reason for saying so. She has told me nothing--" "I should think not," said Madame de Sainfoy, shortly. Mademoiselle Moineau was dismissed back to her pupils, whom she found, under Henriette's surveillance, deep in the romance of French history. Madame de Sainfoy crossed the passage and tried Hélène's door. It was not fastened, as she had half expected. Opening it quickly and gently, she found her daughter sitting in the window, as the governess had described her, with both arms stretched out upon its broad sill, and eyes fixed in a long wistful gaze on the small spire of the church at La Marinière, and the screen of trees which partly hid the old manor buildings from view. "What are you doing, Hélène?" said Madame de Sainfoy. Her voice, though low, was peremptory. The girl started up, turning her white face and tired eyes from the window. Her mother walked across the room and sat down in a high-backed chair close by. "What a waste of time," she said, "to sit staring into vacancy! Why are you not reading history with your sisters, as I wished?" "Mamma--my head aches," said Hélène. "Then bathe it with cold water. What is the matter with you, child? You irritate me with your pale looks. Do you dislike Lancilly? Do you wish yourself back in Paris?" "No, mamma." "I could excuse you if you did," said Madame de Sainfoy, with a smile. "I find the country insupportable myself, but you see, as the fates have preserved to us this rat-infested ruin, we must make the best of it. I set you an example, Hélène. I interest myself in restoring and decorating. If you were to help me, time would not seem so long." She did not speak at all unkindly. "I like the country. I like Lancilly much better than Paris," said Hélène.