“Well, but, Hermione, you aren’t feeling very well.”
“I am much better now. Do stay. I shall rest, and Vere will take care of you.”
It struck him for the first time that she was becoming very ready to substitute Vere for herself as his companion. He wondered if he had really offended or hurt her in any way. He even wondered for a moment whether she was not pleased at his spending the summer in Naples—whether, for some reason, she had wished, and still wished, to be alone with Vere.
“Perhaps Vere will get sick of looking after an—an old man,” he said.
“You are not an old man, Monsieur Emile. Don’t tout!”
“Tout?”
“Yes, for compliments about your youth. You meant me, you meant us both, to say how young you are.”
She spoke gayly, laughingly, but he felt she was cleverly and secretly trying to smooth things out, to cover up the difficulty that had intruded itself into their generally natural and simple relations.
“And your mother says nothing,” said Artois, trying to fall in with her desire, and to restore their wonted liveliness. “Don’t you look upon me as almost a boy, Hermione?”
“I think sometimes you seem wonderfully young,” she said.