No one had ever spoken to Gilberte with such seriousness and deference. She felt quite touched and, with a spontaneous movement, held out her hand to Guillaume:
“We shall be friends,” she said. “I am sure that we shall be friends.”
He was on the point of raising her small, gloved hand to his lips, but he restrained himself. And she went on:
“So this is the unsociable Guillaume de la Vaudraye! Will you believe that you quite frightened me with your surly ways? You did indeed!”
After this interview, Gilberte did two or three errands and returned to the Logis. It was drawing towards evening. She made for the summer-house and saw her dream-companion in the distance. She said to him, as though he could hear her and as though she felt bound to tell him the good news without delay:
“You know, I have a new friend!”
And Gilberte saw nothing extraordinary in this sudden friendship, based upon the exchange of a few sentences. Was she not one of those unsophisticated beings who always obey the unreflecting impulse of their hearts, who look you straight in the eyes and who do not think it out of place to tell people how they feel towards them?
And so, the next evening, she went to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, quite happy at the thought of seeing her new friend again. A disappointment awaited her: Guillaume did not appear.
She went back next day. Guillaume came down to the drawing-room, bowed to her and seemed to take no further notice of her presence.
Thereupon, on the third day, while the others were listening to Mlle. du Bocage and M. Lartiste the elder in the duet from Mireille, Gilberte, finding that Guillaume was alone in the next room, went out to him. She at once saw that he tried to avoid her. Realizing this to be impossible, he gave a gesture of vexation and crossed his arms in an indifferent attitude.