You are accustomed to the great world--" "The great world of Lesperon, in Gascony ?" I interrupted.
"No, no; the great world you have inhabited at Paris and elsewhere.
I can understand that at Lavedan you should find little of interest, and--and that your inactivity should render you impatient to be gone." "If there were so little to interest me then it might be as you say.
But, oh, mademoiselle--" I ceased abruptly.

Fool! I had almost fallen a prey to the seductions that the time afforded me.

The balmy, languorous eventide, the broad, smooth river down which we glided, the foliage, the shadows on the water, her presence, and our isolation amid such surroundings, had almost blotted out the matter of the wager and of my duplicity.
She laughed a little nervous laugh, and--maybe to ease the tension that my sudden silence had begotten--"You see," she said, "how your imagination deserts you when you seek to draw upon it for proof of what you protest.

You were about to tell me of--of the interests that hold you at Lavedan, and when you come to ponder them, you find that you can think of nothing.

Is it--is it not so ?" She put the question very timidly, as if half afraid of the answer she might provoke.
"No; it is not so," I said.
I paused a moment, and in that moment I wrestled with myself.