"Acquaintances! You mean the people who come to see me! I hate them all! Sometimes they amuse me a little, but that is all. They are nothing!"
"And you have no women friends?"
"None! How should I! But I do not care. I do not like English-women!"
"But, Adrea, it is not good for you,—this isolation from your sex."
At the sound of her Christian name, coming from his lips so gently, almost affectionately, she looked up quickly. It seemed to him almost as though some softening change had crept over her. Was it the firelight, he wondered, or was it fancy?
"Good for me!" she said softly. "Have you just thought of that, Monsieur Paul?"
Again he felt that pang of conscience; and yet, was she not a little unjust to him?
"You took your life into your own hands," he reminded her. "You chose for yourself."
"Yes, yes!" she answered, drawing a little nearer to him, till her head almost rested upon his knees. "I do not blame you."