ion, to the coming of the future woman and
future society, which you young men are all longing for, are you not?"

"Of course we are!" exclaimed Francois; "we all agree on that point."

She waved her hand in a pretty way, and then quietly continued: "I'm
jesting. My views are simple enough, as you well know, and I don't ask
for nearly as much as you do. As for woman's claims and rights, well, the
question is clear enough; woman is man's equal so far as nature allows
it. And the only point is to agree and love one another. At the same time
I'm well pleased to know what I do--oh! not from any spirit of pedantry
but simply because I think it has all done me good, and given me some
moral as well as physical health."

It delighted her to recall the days she had spent at the Lycee Fenelon,
which of the five State colleges for girls opened in Paris was the only
one counting a large number of pupils. Most of these were the daughters
of officials or professors, who purposed entering the teaching
profession. In this case, they had to win their last diploma at the Ecole
Normale of Sevres, after leaving the Lycee. Marie, for her part, though
her studies had been brilliant, had felt no taste whatever for the
calling of teacher. Moreover, when Guillaume had taken charge of her
after her father's death, he had refused to let her run about giving
lessons. To provide herself with a little money, for she would accept
none as a gift, she worked at embroidery, an art in which she was most
accomplished.

While she was talking to the young men Guillaume had listened to her
without interfering. If he had fallen in love with her it was largely on
account of her frankness and uprightness, the even balance of her nature,
which gave her so forcible a charm. She knew all; but if she lacked the
poetry of the shrinking, lamb-like girl who has been brought up in
ignorance, she had gained absolute rectitude of heart and mind, exempt
from all hypocrisy, all secret perversity such as is stimulated by what
may seem mysterious in life. And whatever she might know, she had
retained such child-like purity that in spite of her six-and-twenty
summers all the blood in her veins would occasionally rush to her cheeks
in fiery blushes, which drove her to despair.

"My dear Marie," Guillaume now exclaimed, "you know very well that the
youngsters were simply joking. You are in the right, of course.... And
your boiled eggs cannot be matched in the whole world."