"What I have been expounding," he said, "doesn't seem to interest you much. But you see, I must do my job, which is to back up M. Lanfranc. Personally, I agree with you. If there are weak spots in your house, the nearest mason can put on the necessary plaster, stone and mortar. As for the garden and the wood, I should do nothing except make a few paths so that I might walk without fear of dew or brambles."
"Now you're being sensible. Very well then, I shall tell my father that I shall make arrangements with you alone. You will come back here and we will do nothing, almost nothing."
"I shall come back with pleasure and I shall do nothing; but if I have not made you dislike me I shall consider that I have done a great deal."
"But I don't dislike you. When people agree with me, I never dislike them."
"But how can people fail to agree with you when you say such sensible things?"
"Oh, that's very easy. M. Hervart doesn't dispose with disagreement. He contradicts me, laughs at me."
"Good," thought Leonor, "she's in love with Hervart; then she likes being contradicted and even laughed at a little. Or perhaps she's lying, so as to make me believe that Hervart is indifferent to her. Let's try and get a rise."
"At this age that sort of thing is permissible."
"It doesn't take," thought Leonor. "Hervart, to her, is a god and we might go on talking till to-morrow without her understanding a single one of my insinuations or ironies."
He went on, nevertheless, picking out all the spiteful things that can be said with politeness.
"That's what I often tell him. For instance, his taste for insects.... But it amuses him so."
"She's invulnerable," said Leonor to himself.
"And then he knows life. He has lived so much."
"That's true. Sometimes, when he's speaking to me, I fed as though a whole world were opening before me."
"He knows all there is to be known, the arts and the sciences, friendship and love, men, women.... He's seen a lot of them and of every variety."
This time it was Rose who paused a moment to reflect, then:
"That's why I have such immense confidence in him. It's a real happiness for me that he should come and spend his holidays here. I have learnt more in these few weeks than in all the other years of my life."