"No."
"Why not?"
"It is an exercise which doesn't suit my style," Cornélie replied, vexed at meeting any one who disturbed the solitude of her stroll.
"May I walk with you?"
"Certainly."
He gave his machine into the charge of the porter at the gate and walked on with her, quite naturally, without saying very much:
"It's beautiful here," he remarked.
His words seemed to convey a simple meaning. She looked at him, for the first time, attentively:
"You're an archæologist?" she asked.
"No," he said, deprecatingly.