As Madeleine cleared away the table, Blanche began to water the flowers by the window, and Jules opened the copy of the _Petit Journal_ that he had bought on the way from the church. He kept glancing up at Mademoiselle, however, and each time he looked at her he had a new sensation of pleasure. How domestic she looked in the little dress of gray wool that she had put on after her return from mass! She seemed to create an atmosphere of home around her. In her belt were the roses he had given her the night before, still fresh and sparkling with drops of water from her fingers. How good it was, he thought, that he could be with her like this! How lonely his own apartment would be to him when Madame Perrault came back! He almost wished that she would never return, that she would marry Monsieur Berthier, and they might go on in this way forever. He laughed at the thought, and just then Mademoiselle turned her head. "Monsieur seems to be amused," she said. "What is he smiling at?" "I'm smiling because I'm so happy," Jules replied. "Don't you smile when you're happy?" She took a seat by the table, where she rested one hand. "No, I don't think I do," she said, apparently giving the question serious consideration. "When I am very happy I look serious. Then mamma sometimes fancies I feel sad." He took a cigarette-case from his pocket and began to smoke. "Do you know," he said at last, "I shall be sorry when your mother returns?" "Sorry?" "Yes, because Madeleine will come back to me then, and I shall have to stay at home. I can't come any more as I do now." A look of alarm appeared in her face. "But why can't you come just the same?" she asked, innocently. He burst out laughing, and he felt a sudden desire to pat her on the cheek as he might have done to a child. What a child she was, anyway! Yet he would not have wished her to be different; she seemed to him just what a young girl should be. "When your mother comes, I can't take breakfast with you any more, and I can't come early on Sunday mornings and stay all day. I shall have to go back to my lonely apartment." "But you have Madeleine," she said, with a faint smile.