"That you have an experience that should enlighten my ignorance, and
matrimonial practice that should polish up my bachelor innocence, that's
all."

"That is too much," she exclaimed.

He replied: "That is so. I don't know anything about ladies; no, and you
know all about gentlemen, for you are a widow. You must undertake my
education--this evening--and you can begin at once if you like."

She exclaimed, very much amused: "Oh, indeed, if you reckon on me for
that!"

He repeated, in the tone of a school boy stumbling through his lesson:
"Yes, I do. I reckon that you will give me solid information--in twenty
lessons. Ten for the elements, reading and grammar; ten for finishing
accomplishments. I don't know anything myself."

She exclaimed, highly amused: "You goose."

He replied: "If that is the familiar tone you take, I will follow your
example, and tell you, darling, that I adore you more and more every
moment, and that I find Rouen a very long way off."

He spoke now with a theatrical intonation and with a series of changes
of facial expression, which amused his companion, accustomed to the ways
of literary Bohemia. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye,
finding him really charming, and experiencing the longing we have to
pluck a fruit from the tree at once, and the check of reason which
advises us to wait till dinner to eat it at the proper time. Then she
observed, blushing somewhat at the thoughts which assailed her: "My dear
little pupil, trust my experience, my great experience. Kisses in a
railway train are not worth anything. They only upset one." Then she
blushed still more as she murmured: "One should never eat one's corn in
the ear."

He chuckled, kindling at the double meanings from her pretty mouth, and
made the sign of the cross, with a movement of the lips, as though
murmuring a prayer, adding aloud: "I have placed myself under the
protection of St. Anthony, patron-saint of temptations. Now I am
adamant."

Night was stealing gently on, wrapping in its transparent shadow, like a
fine gauze, the broad landscape stretching away to the right. The train
was running along the Seine, and the young couple began to watch the
crimson reflections on the surface of the river, winding like a broad
strip of polished metal alongside the line, patches fallen from the sky,
which the departing sun had kindled into flame. These reflections slowly
died out, grew deeper, faded sadly. The landscape beca