Rose had laid her plans in such a fashion that the young man had found her in his path. Not to see her was too deliberately to avoid her. If he saw her, he had to take off his hat. And this was what had happened. Rose had answered his salutation by a word of welcome; conversation had then passed to the old house at Barnavast, finally to Mme. Suif. But Leonor was discreet and vague, so much so that at one of Rose's questions the conversation had switched off on to sentimental commonplaces. But, for Rose, nothing in the world was commonplace yet.
"Isn't she rather old to marry again?" she asked.
"Ah, but Mme. Suif is one of those whose hearts are always young."
"Then there are some hearts that grow old more slowly than others?"
"Some never grow old at all, just as some have never been young."
"All the same, I see a great difference, when I look around me, between the feelings of young and old people."
"Do you know many people?"
"No, very few; but I have always seen a correspondence between people's hearts and faces."
"Certainly; but a general truth, although it may represent the average of particular truths, is hardly ever the same as a single particular case selected by chance...."
Rose looked at Leonor with a mixture of admiration and shame: she did not understand. Leonor perceived the fact and went on: