Volume Ii Part 28 (2/2)
Honorine lowered her eyes, but she let her arm rest on the dog, as if to ask him not to leave her. A few seconds later Paul had halted in front of the young woman; and his dog gazed at him earnestly, without moving from his place, as if to say: ”I am very comfortable here!”
”Really, madame, I am afraid that Ami presumes too far upon your kindness to him,” said Paul, as he bowed to Honorine; ”he is altogether too unceremonious; you should send him away.”
”Oh! monsieur, why should I send the good dog away, when he shows such a friendly feeling for me? it is not such a common thing; and one can depend upon it in his case, I fancy?”
”Oh! yes, yes! and in no other!”
”Do you really mean that you make no other exception, monsieur? It must be very melancholy to think that no one can ever have a friendly feeling for one!”
Paul made no reply; he remained standing in front of the young woman; but he gazed fixedly at his dog and seemed to be studying the contented expression that he read in his eyes.
”Monsieur,” said Honorine after a moment, ”if you care to rest a while, this tree trunk on which I am sitting is quite large enough for two. I do not ask you to come into the house, although it is within a few steps; for, as you have never deigned to accept our invitations, I am bound to presume that they do not please you.”
Ami's master made no reply, but he seated himself on the tree trunk, beside the young woman; and his dog, who had followed him with his eyes, stretched out one of his paws and rested it on his master, looking at him with an expression of the greatest satisfaction.
Honorine waited expecting that her neighbor would speak to her, but he maintained silence and seemed absorbed in his reflections.
The young woman, who was very desirous to talk, decided to begin.
”Have you lived in this part of the country long, monsieur?”
”A little more than nine years, madame.”
”And you live alone on your estate?”
”Practically alone.”
”You abandoned the world very young.”
”One finds it easy to leave what one despises!”
”Oh! pray let me believe, monsieur, that that contempt does not include the whole world.”
”Doubtless there are exceptions, madame; but I have been so cruelly tried, that I am quite justified in entertaining a bad opinion of men.”
”And of women too, perhaps?”
”Of women even more!”
”Really? And because one woman deceived you, you despise them all! Allow me to tell you, monsieur, that all women are not alike!”
”They have all been alike to me, however!”
”Ah! you have been deceived by several?”
”So long as it is only a matter of pleasure--of follies, if you will--one can always make excuses, forgive; but there is a kind of treachery that reaches the heart, that has deplorable, heartrending consequences, and that leads to irreparable disasters! Ah! that sort of treachery one never forgives!”
”No; but one pours out his grief upon the bosom of a friend, who comforts one, who strives to make one forget one's suffering, or at least to alleviate it.”
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