Cartaret found his color high. His mind was putting into her words a meaning he was afraid she might see that he put there.
“Not to me,” he said.
Surrender! What a troublesome word she was using!
The chin went higher; the lips came nearer.
“A complete surrender, sir.” Quickly she stepped back. If she had read his face rightly, her face gave no hint of it, but she was at once her former self. “And that I will never do,” she said, reverting to French.
It was Cartaret’s turn to want to change the subject. He did it awkwardly.
“Have you been in the Bois?” he asked.
No, she had not been in the Bois. She loved nature too well to care for artificial scenery.
“But the Bois is the sort of art that improves on nature,” he protested; “at least, so the Parisian will tell you; and, really, it is beautiful now. You ought to see it. I was there last night.”