She laughed.  ’And now you are big, and you’ve come back to Saint-Graal, and your lady-love is at Granjolaye.  Why don’t you call on her and offer to redeem your promise?’

‘Why doesn’t she send for me—­bid me to an audience?’

‘Perhaps her prophetic soul warns her how you’d disappoint her.’

‘Do you think she’d be disappointed in me?’

‘Aren’t you disappointed in yourself?’

‘Oh, dear, no; I think I’m very nice.’

’I should be disappointed in myself, if I were a man who had been capable of such an innocent, sweet affection as yours for Helene de la Granjolaye, and had then gone and soiled myself with the mud of what they call life.’  She spoke earnestly; her face was grave and sad.

He was surprised, and a little alarmed.  ’Do you mean by that that you think I’m a bad lot?’ he asked.

’You said the other day—­yesterday was it?—­that you had made a fool of yourself on various occasions.’

‘Well?’

‘Did the process not generally involve making a fool of a woman too?’

‘Reciprocity?  Perhaps.’

‘And what was it you always said to them?’

‘Oh, I suppose I did.’

‘You told them you loved them?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘And was it true?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then!’

’Ah, but they weren’t deceived; they never believed it.  That’s only a convention of the game, a necessary formula, like the “Dear” at the beginning of a letter.’

’You have “lived”; you have “lived.”  You’d have been so unique, so rare, so much more interesting, if instead of going and “living” like other men, you had remained true to the ideal passion of your childhood.’

’I had the misfortune to be born into the world, and not into a fairy tale, you see.  But it’s a perfectly gratuitous assumption, that I have “lived."’

‘Can you honestly tell me you haven’t?’ she asked, very soberly, with something like eagerness; her pale face intent.

’As a matter of fact ...  Oh, the worst of it is ...  I can’t honestly say that I’ve never ...  But then, what do you want to rake up such matters for?  It’s not my fault if I’ve accepted the traditions of my century.  Well, anyhow, you see I can’t lie to you.’

‘You appear to find it difficult,’ she assented, rising.

‘Well, what do you infer from that?’

She blew her whistle.  ‘That—­that you’re out of training,’ she said lightly, as she mounted her horse.

‘Oh,’ he groaned, ‘you’re—­’

‘What?’

‘You beggar language.’

She laughed and rode away.

‘There, I’ve spoiled everything,’ Paul said, and went home, and passed a sleepless night.

XI.

‘I’ll bet you sixpence she won’t turn up to-day,’ he said to his friend in the glass, next morning; nevertheless he went into the forest, and there she was.  But she did not offer to dismount.