The memory of the last words touched him.
“She’s not made for that sort of thing. It’s not decent. It’s not playing the game. Leave her alone, and she’ll forget.”
Even as he spoke, he wondered whether he spoke truth; but that was a question to be dismissed with a mental shrug.
“I dare say she’s got nothing to forget,” returned René gloomily. “I’ve no doubt she thinks I’m just a ridiculous young fool.”
François did not reply.
“Women are strange things,” pursued René presently. “They alter so. Anne has grown years younger,—and years older since we first saw her. She manages us now. Have you noticed?” He turned to the other man with a quick smile. “She couldn’t have done that at first. She was too shy, and—what’s the word?—diffident. And yet at first, did she seem a woman to fall in love with? I never thought of it. I believe we all looked upon her as an interesting creature, and thought ourselves rather fine fellows for discovering her beauty,—which perhaps doesn’t exist at all. She was something to paint, something to discuss——”
“Something to teach,” added François slowly.
He glanced at the clock. “Come along! Do you see the time? And we’ve got to start at seven to-morrow.”
He got up, and put his pipe in his pocket.
“The art of life, my dear young friend,” he remarked with burlesque sententiousness, as he turned out the lamp, “is to manage one’s episodes carefully. And to see that they remain episodes.”