Fleurange drew herself up with an air of surprise, and shook her head without otherwise answering.
“No?” said Felix.
“No, certainly not. How could
you think of such a thing? And what claim have you to become my mentor?”
“Your mentor!” repeated Felix with a frown. “I am your cousin, that is all. Clement often has the honor of accompanying you in this way, and I should have a share in his privileges.”
“You are mistaken,” said Fleurange tranquilly: “Clement is my brother, and you are not.”
The smile habitual to Felix—a smile at once impertinent and satirical, hovered on his lips:
“Assuredly not,” he said; “that is a title I am by no means ambitious of, and am far from claiming of you.”
Fleurange blushed, and made no reply, but, at a sign from her cousins who were in the room, she almost immediately left the balcony and went down into the garden.
Clement remained motionless during the preceding dialogue, with his head bent down, making flourishes on the sand with the stick in his hand.