"You are having all your friends," she says.
"Some of them, those who live in Paris at this season. I have done for you to-day what I seldom care to do: I have asked them all together. But I have made a point of insisting that the strictest isolation shall be maintained."
Rose laughed as she asked me what I meant.
"It's quite simple," I answered. "We shall throw open all the doors; and there will be no crowding permitted! No general conversation, no loud talking ..."
"In short," she exclaimed, "the exact opposite to the convent, where we were forbidden to talk in twos."
"That is to say, where you were forbidden to talk at all; for there is no real conversation with more than one. As long as you have not spoken to a person alone, can you say that you have ever seen her?"
She did not appear convinced; and I continued:
"But just think! Conversation in pairs, when two people are in sympathy—and they are nearly always in sympathy when they are face to face—can be as sincere as lonely meditations."
I felt that she shared my sentiment; but her reasonable nature makes her always steer a middle course, never leaning to either side.