"Can I?"
"Oh! poor boy!"
Both were gazing into a clump of trees with a stupefied air.
Camille rose.
"I will go and hasten breakfast; my walk has given me an appetite,"
she said.
"Our conversation has taken away mine," remarked Beatrix.
The marquise in her morning dress was outlined in white against the
dark greens of the foliage. Calyste, who had slipped through the salon
into the garden, took a path, along which he sauntered as though he
were meeting her by accident. Beatrix could not restrain a quiver as
he approached her.
"Madame, in what way did I displease you yesterday?" he said, after
the first commonplace sentences had been exchanged.
"But you have neither pleased me nor displeased me," she said, in a
gentle voice.
The tone, air, and manner in which the marquise said these words
encouraged Calyste.
"Am I so indifferent to you?" he said in a troubled voice, as the
tears came into his eyes.
"Ought we not to be indifferent to each other?" replied the marquise.
"Have we not, each of us, another, and a binding attachment?"
"Oh!" cried Calyste, "if you mean Camille, I did love her, but I love
her no longer.
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