'Yes!' she said, looking at him with a little frown, 'yes—what did you say?'
Then she saw that his whole face was working with emotion.
'I wish you would have stayed like that,' he said, in a voice which trembled.
'Why?'
'Because—because it was so sweet!'
She gave a little start, and a sudden red sprang into her cheek.
His heart leapt. He had never seen her blush for any word of his before.
'I prefer the air itself,' she said, bending forward and looking away from him out of the open window at the villas they were passing.
Yet, all the while, as the country houses succeeded each other and her eyes followed them, she saw not their fragrant, flowery gardens, but the dark face and tall young form opposite. He was handsomer even than when she had seen him first—handsomer far than her portrait of him. Was it the daily commerce with new forms of art and intelligence which Paris and her companionship had brought him?—or simply the added care which a man in love instinctively takes of the little details of his dress and social conduct?—which had given him this look of greater maturity, greater distinction? Her heart fluttered a little—then she fell back on the thought of Taranne's letter.
They emerged from the station at St. Germain into a fierce blaze of sun, which burned on the square red mass of the old chateau, and threw a blinding glare on the white roads.