Annette felt the attraction. She judged him accurately enough, but this only made her love him the more. She smiled at his foibles, which were infinitely dear to her. These made him seem to her less the man, and more the child; and her heart rejoiced that he was one as well as the other. One of Roger's charms was that he hid nothing; he showed his entire self. His innocent satisfaction with himself gave him a perfect naturalness. He was all the more confiding because he was enamoured of Annette. Ardently and without reservations. He loved nothing by halves. But he never saw more than half of anything. His fire for her was kindled one evening when he had been very eloquent in some drawing-room. Annette had said nothing, but she had listened marvelously. (At least he thought so.) Her intelligent eyes returned his own thoughts to him, clearer and more winged. Her smile gave him joy in what he had said so well, and it was all the sweeter because he felt that it was shared. . . . How beautiful she was, that listening girl! What an admirable mind, what an exceptional soul, could be discerned in those attentive, speaking eyes, in that all-understanding smile! . . . Although he was the only one to speak, he had the illusion that he was talking with her. In any case, he no longer spoke save for her; and he felt himself being lifted above himself by this inward dialogue, by the mysterious exchange of these mute responses. . . . As a matter of fact, Annette was scarcely listening. Sufficiently intelligent to seize promptly the general drift of Roger's thought, she followed absentmindedly, as was her habit, the fine balanced phrases. But she profited by his absorption in his eloquence to study him thoroughly: eyes, mouth and hands, the way he moved his chin when he talked, his fine nostrils resembling those of a neighing colt, his habit of prettily rolling certain letters, and all that this expressed, both inside and out. . . . She could see into him. She perceived his desire to be admired, she saw the pleasure that he took in pleasing, and she judged him handsome, intelligent, eloquent, amazing. And it did not occur to her at all (yes! a little, a very little . . .) to find him comical. On the contrary, she found him very touching. . . . . . . "Yes, my dear, you are handsome, you are charming, intelligent, eloquent, amazing. . . . You want a little smile? . . . There, my dear, I give you two . . . with my very sweetest eyes. . . . Are you satisfied? . . ." In her heart she laughed, when she saw him, all happiness and pride, redouble his warbling like a spring bird. Homage was sweet to him; he drank it undiluted, without a drop of irony; he wanted more, he was never wearied. And, intoxicated by his own song, he could no longer distinguish it from the person who admired it. She seemed to him the incarnation of all that was beautiful, pure and genial in it. He adored her.