She held out her hand; Leonor pressed it respectfully.
"I have given you less pain now than you would have felt later on. It would have been irremediable then."
"Who knows? I might perhaps have forgiven him afterwards. I shall not forgive before."
"I know M. Hervart fairly well," said Leonor, in a slightly hypocritical voice, "but I know that, despite his age, he is capricious. M. Lanfranc is a spiteful gossip and I won't repeat all he told me. I know enough, and from certain sources, to make me congratulate myself on what is perhaps an audacious intervention."
"And what about my father? He has agreed to our marriage."
"Your father lives a long way from Paris. He is kind and trustful. No doubt his friend promised him to make you happy, and he believed him."
"I believed him too. Alas! he had begun to make me happy already."
"Oh! his intentions weren't bad. M. Hervart is not a bad man. He is fickle, inconstant, irresolute."
"I see that only too clearly."
"He's an egoist. All men are egoists, for that matter, but there are degrees. Is he capable of loving a woman whole-heartedly, capable of consecrating his life to weaving daily joys for her? And yet what could be a more perfect dream, when one meets in his path a creature who is worthy of it, one who draws to herself not only love but adoration!"