"I shall not come here again." He bowed slightly.
"I applaud the wisdom of your resolve--Cit--Cecile.

The world, as I have said, is censorious." She looked at him a second, then she laughed, but it was laughter of the lips only; the eyes looked steely as daggers and as capable of mischief.
"Adieu, Citizen La Boulaye," she murmured mockingly.
"Au revoir, Citoyenne Deshaix," he replied urbanely.
"Ough!" she gasped, and with that sudden exclamation of pent-up wrath, she whisked about and went rustling to the door.
"Citoyenne," he called after her, "you are forgetting your flowers." She halted, and seemed for a second to hesitate, looking at him oddly.
Then she came back to the table and took up her roses.

Again she looked at him, and let the bouquet fall back among the papers.
"I brought them for you, Caron," she said, "and I'll leave them with you.

We can at least be friends, can we not ?" "Friends?
But were we ever aught else ?" he asked.
"Alas! no," she said to herself, whilst aloud she murmured: "I thought that you would like them.

Your room has such a gloomy, sombre air, and a few roses seem to diffuse some of the sunshine on which they have been nurtured." "You are too good, Cecile" he answered, and, for all his coldness, he was touched a little by this thoughtfulness.
She looked up at the altered tone, and the expression of her face seemed to soften.