She looked away, relapsing once more into silence. He glanced towards her. The weariness of her expression was more than ever evident to-day, the weariness that was not fretful, that seemed, indeed, to give an added sweetness to her face. Yet its pathos was always there. Her eyes, which looked steadily down the road in front of them, were full of the fatigue of unwelcome days.
"You men so easily escape," she murmured. "We women never."
Julien was conscious of a certain selfishness in all his thoughts connected with his companion. He had been so ready always to accept her society, to accept and profit by the stimulus of her intellect. Yet he himself had given so little, had shown so little interest in her or her personal affairs. He sat a trifle more upright in his place.
"Dear Madame Christophor," he said earnestly, "you have been so kind to me, you have shown so much interest always in my doings and my troubles. Why not tell me something of your own life? I have felt so much the benefit of your sympathy. Is there nothing in the world I could do for you?"
She sighed.
"No person in the world," she declared, "could help me; certainly not one of your sex. I start with an instinctive and unchanging hatred towards every one of them."
"But, madame," Julien protested, "is that reasonable?"
"It is the truth," she replied. "I do my best when we are together to forget it so far as you are concerned. I succeed because you do not use with me any of the miserable devices of your sex to provoke an interest whether they really desire it or not. You treat me, Sir Julien, as it pleases me to be treated. It is for that reason, I am sure—it must be for that reason—that I find some pleasure in being with you, whereas the society of any other man is a constant irritation to me."
Julien hesitated.
"You know," he began, "I am not naturally a curious person. I have never asked a question of you or about you from the few people with whom I have come in contact over here. At the same time,—"