ment, held out her hand to Guillaume: "We shall be friends," she said. "I am sure that we shall be friends."
He was on the point of raising her small, gloved hand to his lips, but he restrained himself. And she went on:
"So this is the unsociable Guillaume de la Vaudraye! Will you believe that you quite frightened me with your surly ways? You did indeed!"
After this interview, Gilberte did two or three errands and returned to the Logis. It was drawing towards evening. She made for the summer-house and saw her dream-companion in the distance. She said to him, as though he could hear her and as though she felt bound to tell him the good news without delay:
"You know, I have a new friend!"
And Gilberte saw nothing extraordinary in this sudden friendship, based upon the exchange of a few sentences. Was she not one of those unsophisticated beings who al-
