They did not exchange a word. But Ralph never ceased pouring out the tenderest protestations to her, in his heart. “Well, so you detest me no longer, lady with the green eyes, you have forgotten my offense at our first meeting. And I, I have so much respect for you that I do not wish to remember it. Come: smile a little since you have now fallen into the habit of regarding me as your good genius. One smiles at one’s good genius.” She did not smile. But he felt that she was friendly and very close to him. The car traveled for barely an hour. They came round the Puy-de-Dome and took a fairly narrow road which ran southwards, with zigzag ascents, and descents through the middle of green valleys and dark forests. Then the road grew narrower and ran through a deserted, arid region and became steep. It was paved with enormous slabs of lava of different sizes, with large cracks between them. “An old Roman causeway,” said Ralph. “There is not an old corner of France in which one does not find some relic of this kind, some road of Cæsar.” She did not answer. Of a sudden she appeared to have grown absent-minded and dreamy. The old Roman causeway was now little more than a goat path. The ascent of it was difficult. At the top of it was a small plateau in the middle of which stood an almost abandoned village. Aurelie read the name of it on a fingerpost: Juvains. Then came a wood, and then, of a sudden, a grassy plain of pleasing aspect. Then once more the Roman causeway, which climbed upwards, quite straight, between grassy embankments. At the top of this ladder they stopped. Aurelie had drawn more and more into herself. Ralph did not cease to watch her closely. When they had mounted a series of boulders which rose one above the other like a staircase, they came to a circular stretch of country, which delighted the eye with the fresh greenness of its turf. It was shut in by a high wall of rough stone, the mortar in which had not been destroyed by the bad weather of years. It stretched, right and left, to a distance. A large door in it faced them. Ralph had the key of it. He opened it. The ground continued to rise. When they had reached the crest of the slope, they saw before them a lake set in a glassy smoothness, in the hollow of a circle of rocks which rose evenly above it. For the first time Aurelie asked a question; and it revealed the manner in which her mind had been working. “May I ask whether, in bringing me here rather than somewhere else, you had a motive? Or was it just chance?” she said. “The view is indeed rather gloomy,” said Ralph without answering her directly. “But all the same it displays a ruggedness and wild melancholy which are not without character. They tell me that tourists never make excursions to it. However, one can go for a row on the lake, as you see.” He took her towards an old boat moored to a stake by a chain. She stepped into the stern and sat down without a word.