"You speak as though that annoyed you?"
She glanced sideways at Rueille, her eyes shining beneath her drooping eyelids, whilst he replied, with a touch of irritation in his voice in spite of himself:
"Annoyed me, but why should it? Are your affairs any business of mine; have I any voice in the matter of anything that concerns you?"
"Which means that if you had a voice in the matter—?"
"Ah, there would certainly be many changes, and many reforms that I should make."
"For instance?"
"Well, I should not allow you, if I were in your grandmamma's place, to be quite as affable and as ready to welcome everyone; I should want to keep you rather more for myself, and prevent your letting strangers have so much of you."
"Yes," she said, with a pensive expression, "perhaps you are right."
"And all the more so because we shall have you to ourselves for so short a time now."
The large candid eyes, with their sweet expression, were fixed on Paul de Rueille as he continued: