Whilst I was talking, Madame de Fersen regarded me with increasing astonishment. At last she said:
"Do you really hold on marriage views of such excessive delicacy?"
"Assuredly, madame, or at least I borrow them for my prediction from the man who some day shall be so fortunate as to be entrusted with your daughter's happiness. Do you not think that a husband such as I predict for her, handsome, young, well born, intellectual, attractive, who should hold these opinions, do you not think that he would offer the greatest possibilities for durable happiness? I am sure that Mlle. Irene is endowed with all those precious gifts of the soul which can inspire and appreciate such a love."
"Of course, it is but a beautiful dream; but I must repeat that I am greatly astonished that you should have such dreams," she said to me, with a slightly mocking air.
"And why, madame?"
"What! you, monsieur, who came to the Orient to seek the idealisation of material life!"
"It is true," I murmured, gazing at her fixedly; "but I renounced that life from the moment when chance brought to my knowledge, and gave me the opportunity of adoring, an idealisation of its opposites, of intellect, grace, and love."
Madame de Fersen looked at me severely.
I do not know what she was about to say, when her husband entered and asked me if I knew an air called "Anacreon and Polycrates."
Since the day on which the avowal passed my lips, Madame de Fersen seemed carefully to avoid remaining alone with me, although before our travelling companions her manner was unchanged.