“You are very silent, monsieur.”
“I was thinking—how very beautiful the day is.”
As a matter of fact, he was not thinking anything of the sort. He was in a fever. He was thinking how very beautiful, adorable, attractive this lovely wild creature was hanging round his neck. He had never before adventured such an experience. He had never kissed Lucile. Women were an unopened book to him, and lo! suddenly the most captivating of her sex was clinging to him. He felt the pressure of her soft brown forearm on the back of his neck. Her little teeth were parted with smiles, and she panted gently with the exertion of hopping. Her dark eyes searched his, and appeared to be slightly mocking, amused, interested.
“If only I might pick her up and carry her,” he thought, but he did not dare to make the suggestion.
Once she remarked:
“Oh, but I am tired,” and he thought she looked at him slyly.
The journey must have occupied half-an-hour, and she told him a little about herself. She lived with her father. Her mother had died when she was a baby. It was quite a small inn, frequented by charcoal-burners and woodmen, and occasionally by visitors from Paris. She liked the country very much, but sometimes it was dull—oh, dull, dull, dull!
“Ah, it is sometimes dull, even in Paris!” sighed Monsieur Roget.
“You must come and speak to my father, and take a glass of wine,” she remarked.