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112 tete-a-tete has perhaps gone on long enough; it would be very nice of you if you'd go and join them."

M. Hervart, impatient though he was, made his way slowly through the meanders of the little copse. Like Panurge, he kept repeating to himself, "Marry her? or not marry her?"

His head was a clock in which a pendulum swung indefatigably. He sat down on the little bench where, for the ﬁrst time, he had felt the girl's head coming gently to rest on his shoulder. He wanted to think.

"I must come to decision," he said to himself.

Leonor had noticed that, from the moment their walk had begun, Rose was on the alert at the slightest noise.

"She expects him. That means he'll come. So much the better. I care very little about this schoolgirl. We're alone now; no more compliments. I'm simply a landscape gardener at the orders of Mlle Rose Des Boys. What a name!..."

He looked at the girl.

"After all, the name isn't so ridiculous as one might think. She is so fresh, she looks so