I looked for some expression of surprise in her eyes, but it seemed that she must have known who had entered before she turned. Instead I saw in her face a strange new tenderness that set my heart beating. She gave me her hand with a gesture of shyness that was likewise unknown to me. "Why do you look at me like that?" she asked, sharply. "I was wondering what your thought was as you came towards me, Mademoiselle." "Ah!" she answered, with a shake of the head. [Illustration: "ME VOILA, IF YOU WANT ME"] "It could not have been that you were glad to see me here? Yet, one would almost have thought--" She broke into a light laugh. "It is so easy to think wrong," she said. I had sat down again, hoping that she would do the same; but she remained standing a few yards away from me, her shoulder against the grey old wall of the porch. She was looking out into the shadow of the trees, and to be near her was a greater happiness than I can tell. "Do you find it easy to think wrong, Mademoiselle?" "Yes," she answered, gently. "And I also." We remained silent for a few minutes, and the chatter of the frogs in the moat sounded pleasant and peaceful. "What have you thought that was wrong?" asked Lucille at length. "I thought that you loved Alphonse Giraud, and would marry him." Lucille stood and never looked at me. "Was I wrong, Mademoiselle?" "Yes--and I told Alphonse so from the beginning, but he did not believe me until lately." "I thought it was he," I said. "No--nor any like him. If ever I did--either of those things--it would need to be a man--one of strong will who would be master, not only of me, but of men; one whom I should always think wiser and stronger and braver than any other." I looked at her, and saw nothing but her profile and the gleam of a sun-ray on her hair. "Am I a man, Mademoiselle?" There was a silence, a long one, I thought it. "Yes," she answered at last, barely audible; and as she spoke stepped out into the broken shade of the cypress trees. She went a few paces away from me--then came slowly back and stood before me. Her face was quite colourless, but there was that in her eyes that brings heaven down to earth. "_Me voila_," she said, with a queer little gesture of self-abandonment. "_Me voila_, if you want me."