"Then that applies to me, too; do you look upon me, too, as a brother?" asked Jean de Blaye, trying to speak in an indifferent tone.
"You, oh, no! not at all; you are thirty-five at least!"
"No, thirty-three."
"Only that?—ah, well, it's all the same! you don't seem to me like a brother!"
She was silent a moment, thinking, whilst he stood waiting, with a sort of vague hope.
"You seem to me more like an uncle," she said at last.
"Oh!" remarked Jean, with an accent that betrayed his vexation, "that is very nice."
"You are annoyed with me for saying that?" she asked, in her pretty, coaxing way.
"Oh, not at all! I am delighted, on the contrary; it is very satisfactory, for, with you, one knows exactly what to count on; and then, if one has any delusions, well, they don't have to hang fire."
"You had delusions—what were they?"