“You like those little ones?” he inquired.

“I adore them!”

He felt, from her manner of looking at them, that she longed to take them in her arms, to hug and kiss them—­the natural and tender longing of a future mother; and he was surprised at this secret instinct hidden in this little woman.

As she appeared ready to talk, he questioned her about her tastes.  She admitted, with pretty naivete, that she had hopes of social success and glory, and that she desired to have fine horses, which she knew almost as well as a horse-dealer, for a part of the farm at Roncieres was devoted to breeding; but she appeared to trouble her head no more about a fiance than one is concerned about an apartment, which is always to be found among the multitude of houses to rent.

They approached the lake, where two swans and six ducks were quietly floating, as clean and calm as porcelain birds, and they passed before a young woman sitting in a chair, with an open book lying on her knees, her eyes gazing upward, her soul having apparently taken flight in a dream.

She was as motionless as a wax figure.  Plain, humble, dressed as a modest girl who has no thought of pleasing, she had gone to the land of Dreams, carried away by a phrase or a word that had bewitched her heart.  Undoubtedly she was continuing, according to the impulse of her hopes, the adventure begun in the book.

Bertin paused, surprised.  “How beautiful to dream like that!” said he.

They had passed before her; now they turned and passed her again without her perceiving them, so attentively did she follow the distant flight of her thought.

“Tell me, little one,” said the painter to Annette, “would it bore you very much to pose for me once or twice?”

“No, indeed!  Quite the contrary.”

“Look well at that young lady who is roaming in the world of fancy.”

“The lady there, in that chair?”

“Yes.  Well, you, too, will sit on a chair, you will have an open book on your knee, and you will try to do as she does.  Have you ever had daydreams?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Of what?”

He tried to confess her as to her aerial flights, but she would make no reply, evaded his questions, looked at the ducks swimming after some bread thrown to them by a lady, and seemed embarrassed, as if he had touched upon a subject that was a sensitive point with her.

Then, to change the conversation, she talked about her life at Roncieres, spoke of her grandmother, to whom she read aloud a long time every day, and who must now feel very lonely and sad.

As he listened, the painter felt as gay as a bird, gay as he never had been.  All that she had said, all the doings, the trifling everyday details of the simple life of a young girl, amused and interested him.

“Let us sit down,” he said.

They seated themselves near the water, and the two swans came floating toward them, expecting some fresh dainty.