kempt garden. It was sunny there, and they crossed it quickly. She walked ahead. M. Hervart picked a rose as he went along and presented it to her. Rose took it and picked another, which she gave to M. Hervart, saying:
"This one's me."
M. Hervart had to begin pondering again. He was feeling happy, but understood less and less.
"She behaves as though she were in love with me.... She also behaves as though she weren't. At one moment one would think that I was everything to her. A little later she treats me like a mere friend of the family.... And it's she who leads me on.... I have never seen that with flirts.... Where can she have learnt it? Women are like the noblemen in Moliere's time: they know everything without having been taught anything at all."
M. Hervart, weighed down in mind, but light of heart, went up to his room, so as to be able to meditate more at ease. First of all he smartened himself up with some care. He plucked from his beard a hair, which, if not
