He bowed over his horse’s neck, drew down his hat over his eyes, and replied, “To Maisons.”

“Do not go there.  I have just left because there is a dreadful old woman there who says horrid things.”  Then Mlle. Moriaz added, in a queenly tone, “You cannot pass—­you are my prisoner.”

She obliged him to turn back; ten minutes later she had alighted from her coupe, he had sprung from his saddle, and they were seated side by side on a rustic bench.

A few days previous M. Langis had met M. Moriaz, who had complained bitterly of being forsaken by him as well as by Mme. de Lorcy, and who had extracted from him the promise to come and see him.  Camille had kept this promise.  Had he chosen well his time of doing so?  The truth is, he had been both rejoiced and heart-broken to learn that Mlle. Moriaz was absent.  Man is a strange combination of contradictions, especially a man who is in love.  In the same way he had bestowed both blessings and imprecations upon Heaven for permitting him to meet Antoinette.  During some moments he had lost countenance, but had quickly recovered himself; he had formed the generous resolution to act out consistently his role of friend and brother.  He had acquitted himself of it so well at Saint Moritz, that Antoinette believed him cured of the caprice of a day with which she had inspired him and which she had never taken seriously.

“The last time I saw you,” said she, “you dropped a remark that pained me, but I am pleased to think that you did not mean to do so.”

“I am a terrible culprit,” he rejoined, “and I smite myself upon the breast therefore.  I was wanting in respect to your idol.”

“Fortunately, my idol knew nothing about it, and, if he had known, I would have appeased him by saying:  ’Pardon this young man; he does not always know what he is saying.’”

“He even seldom knows it; but what help is there for it?  A man given to fainting always did seem a curiosity to me.  I know we should endeavour to conquer our prejudices; every country has its customs, and, since Poland is a country that pleases you, I will make an effort to see only its good sides.”

“Now that is the right way to talk.  I hope this very day to reconcile you with Count Larinski; stay and dine with us—­he will be here very soon; the first duty of the people whom I love is to love one another.”

M. Langis at first energetically declined accepting this invitation; Antoinette insisted:  he ended by bowing in sign of obedience.  Youth has a taste for suffering.

Tracing figures in the gravel with a stick he had picked up, M. Langis said, in a wholly unconstrained voice:  “I do not wish M. Larinski any harm, and yet you must admit that I would have the right to detest him cordially, for I had the honour two years ago, if I mistake not, of asking your hand in marriage.  Do you remember it?”

“Perfectly,” she replied, fixing upon him her pure, clear eyes; “but I ought to avow to you that this fancy of yours never seemed to me either very reasonable or very serious.”