features and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the
conversation I spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had
passed on my way to the castle. It was a bad beginning.

"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a
poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle. Hélouin,
who also adores these things. For my part I do not love them."

"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.

She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing,
sir."

I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to
lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant.
But why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I
was glad when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room.
Madame Laroque, the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M.
Bévallan about the new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I
had seen the work in Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her
a description of it. I am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a
fine-looking, cultivated woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the
way in which she treated me entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided
from theatrical topics to fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time
in an anecdote about my tour in Russia. A few more words and she would
have learnt that her humble steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called--
was a man with very aristocratic connections.

In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some
of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder