"Then you were very ungrateful and unkind; for I have at this moment in my pocket a book you asked me to get for you. That's what I get for trying to please you."
"I don't remember that I asked you to get anything for me."
"Well, you said you would like to see some of George Sand's novels, which—for me—was just the same. So when I went to London yesterday I managed to borrow it, and there it is." He pointed triumphantly to a yellow-paper-bound volume sticking out of his coat pocket. "Of course you know George Sand is a sort of old Johnnie now; nobody reads her. But that's your affair. Will you have it?" He offered it.
The excitement, the wild flush in the girl's face, had subsided. She looked at the book, and at the man holding it out.
"What is it?" She stooped to read the title—"Mauprat." "What's it about?"
"Some nonsense about a cad tamed by a sentimental young woman." He shrugged his shoulders, "I tried to read it, and couldn't. But they say it's one of her best. If you want it, there it is."
She took it reluctantly, and moved on along the downward path, he following, and the dog beside them.
"Have you read the other book?" he asked her.
"'Julie de Trécoeur?' Yes."
"What did you think of it?"