And turning to the Captain, who was talking to M. Dulaurens and M. Landeau, she noticed that his eyes were following the two girls. “I wasn’t wrong,” she said to herself. “The danger is there.” Little used to reflection and impatient of every discussion which could lessen her authority, she never asked herself whether she could trust Alice’s future to this honourable man; whether, indeed, it was not her duty to do so, should her child’s love have involuntarily been given to him. She quite understood, without admitting it to herself, that a comparison could only be unfavorable to M. de Marthenay, who had already been mixed up in a disgraceful liaison and whose military career was without glory or promise. Instinctively she put from her the thought of any possible rivalry which could at the last moment disturb an arrangement to which she had irrevocably made up her mind, an arrangement which flattered at once her insufferable conceit and her still more overbearing motherly pride. As she chose for her daughter what she would have chosen for herself, she was in no doubt as to the wisdom of her choice and her own disinterestedness. In the meantime Isabelle Orlandi, stopping Jean Berlier as he was going up to join the group of men, whispered: “What do you think of him?” “Of whom?” “M. Landeau.” “I don’t think one way or the other,” Jean replied. “He doesn’t talk much, but he says all he thinks.” She laughed, showing her white teeth, which reflected the light, and for the second time Jean found her laugh ring false. He thought of the songs one hears at night in the country, sung by a belated pedestrian frightened at the solitude. Silent and motionless, M. Landeau devoured his fiancée with his eyes. It was very evident that he felt for her one of those passions that increases instead of lessening with the decline of youth, when it suddenly attacks a heart which has until then been a stranger to love. He was already a middle-aged man, and his clumsy, squarely-built figure lacked distinction. He was little used to society and was easily disconcerted by the light and airy graces which are its very life and soul. The dashing elegance of Jean Berlier, who was only twenty-five, accentuated still more by contrast his own age and clumsiness. From afar he gazed at Isabelle, splendid and beautiful in her white dress, like an idol whom he dared not approach. And she seemed oblivious of everything, even of the unpleasing presence of her millionaire slave. Through the oak-branches, the sun’s rays filtered on the soil of the wood which was covered with a brown carpet of the leaves of past years.