"Eh, perhaps you do."
"Come, what do you mean by such looks!"
Then rising, he looked her a moment in countenance, and replied:
"Nicole, they told me you were clever."
"Well, what does that mean?"
"It means that you are either very stupid," he said curtly, "or very blind."
Nicole mounted the steps in perplexity, arresting her journey at every landing to ask herself anxiously what he could have meant. In her room she remained blankly at the window, forgetting the meal she had to prepare. Several times she passed her hand across her forehead, as though to rout the unquiet thoughts, but always returned to the same reverie. The church bell ringing five aroused her, and, ashamed to have yielded to such doubts, she said angrily:
"Come, I'm an idiot! I'll tell the whole affair to Barabant when he returns and we will laugh at it together."
Yet when he entered, her resolution forgotten, she rose quickly, and taking him by the arms, looked anxiously in his face.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked. "Why do you look at me so curiously?"