"Take care," said Mr. Hervart. "It will sting. Animals never believe that you mean well by them. To them every one's an enemy."
"True," said Rose, shaking off the bee. "Your bugs will eat him and that will be a happy ending. Every one's an enemy."
Rose had spoken so bitterly that M. Hervart was quite distressed. He brought his face close to hers as her big straw hat would permit, and whispered:
"Are you unhappy?"
How beautifully women manage these things! In a flash the hat had disappeared, tossed almost angrily aside, and at the same moment an exquisitely pale and fluffy head dropped on to M. Hervart's shoulder.
It was a touching moment. Much moved, the man put his arm round the girl's waist. His hand took possession of the little hand that she surrendered to him. He had only to turn and bend his head a little, and he was kissing, close below the hair, a white forehead, feverishly moist. He felt her abandonment to him becoming more deliberate; the hand he was holding squeezed his own.
Rose made an abrupt movement which parted them, and looking full at M. Hervart, her face radiant with tenderness, she said:
"I'm not unhappy now."
She got up, and they moved away together through the wood, exchanging little insignificant phrases in voices full of tenderness. Each time their eyes met, they smiled. They kept on fingering leaves, flowers, mere pieces of wood, so as to have an excuse for touching each other's hand. Coming to a clearing where they could walk abreast, they allowed their arms on the inner side to hang limply down, so that their hands touched and were soon joined.
There was a silence, prolonged and very delightful. Each, meanwhile, was absorbed in his own thoughts.