They waited lying on the rough ground. Myrrha hummed a tune. Christophe took it up for a few phrases. But he stopped every now and then to listen. "I think I can hear them." Myrrha went on singing. "Do stop for a moment." Myrrha stopped. "No. It is nothing." She went on with her song. Christophe could not stay still. "Perhaps they have lost their way." "Lost? They could not. Ernest knows all the paths." A fantastic idea passed through Christophe's mind. "Perhaps they arrived first, and went away before we came!" Myrrha was lying on her back and looking at the sun. She was seized with a wild burst of laughter in the middle of her song and all but choked. Christophe insisted. He wanted to go down to the station, saying that their friends would be there already. Myrrha at last made up her mind to move. "You would be certain to lose them!... There was never any talk about the station. We were to meet here." He sat down by her side. She was amused by his eagerness. He was conscious of the irony in her gaze as she looked at him. He began to be seriously troubled--to be anxious about them: he did not suspect them. He got up once more. He spoke of going down into the woods again and looking for them, calling to them. Myrrha gave a little chuckle: she took from her pocket a needle, scissors, and thread: and she calmly undid and sewed in again the feathers in her hat: she seemed to have established herself for the day. "No, no, silly," she said. "If they wanted to come do you think they would not come of their own accord?" There was a catch at his heart. He turned towards her: she did not look at him: she was busy with her work. He went up to her. "Myrrha!" he said. "Eh?" she replied without stopping. He knelt now to look more nearly at her. "Myrrha!" he repeated. "Well?" she asked, raising her eyes from her work and looking at him with a smile. "What is it?" She had a mocking expression as she saw his downcast face. "Myrrha!" he asked, choking, "tell me what you think...." She shrugged her shoulders, smiled, and went on working. He caught her hands and took away the hat at which she was sewing. "Leave off, leave off, and tell me...." She looked squarely at him and waited. She saw that Christophe's lips were trembling. "You think," he said in a low voice, "that Ernest and Ada ...?" She smiled. "Oh! well!" He started back angrily. "No! No! It is impossible! You don't think that!... No! No!" She put her hands on his shoulders and rocked with laughter. "How dense you are, how dense, my dear!" He shook her violently. "Don't laugh! Why do you laugh? You would not laugh if it were true. You love Ernest...." She went on laughing and drew him to her and kissed him. In spite of himself he returned her kiss. But when he felt her lips on his, her lips, still warm with his brother's kisses, he flung her away from him and held her face away from his own: he asked: "You knew it? It was arranged between you?"