Hermia was laughing softly.
"Don't tell me you're as stupid as that."
He took Clarissa by the halter and led the way into the road again.
"What do you mean?" he asked slowly.
"I mean, mon ami, that you have aroused in Olga's breast a dangerous emotion. She decided some time ago to marry you. Didn't you know that? It's quite true. She told me so."
"Told you?"
"Not in words. Oh, no. Olga never tells anything important to anyone.
But she told me so just the same. I know."
"Nonsense. She's a coquette. I've always understood that, but to marry—!"
"Precisely that—nothing else. She's madly in love with you, my poor friend. She has never failed to bring a man to her feet when she made up her mind to. The deduction is obvious."
There was no need of daylight to see the expression on her companion's face. Hermia could read it in the dark.
"What you say is highly unimportant," he said with attempt at a smile. "And because she desires to make me—er—her husband she employs persons to follow me along the byways of France?"