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146 .... We'll come back. Would you like to? We'll come back every year.... One needs a lot of virtue to resist the persuasions of the forest."

"Virtue," said Leonor, "consists in being able to defer one's pleasure or one's happiness .... I should like to see you in this scented sea, a nymph, a dryad, a siren...."

"Do you want to?... You're driving me crazy."

The climb up the slope of the Beaux-Monts calmed their nerves. The carriage, which had come round by the circular road, was waiting for them at the top. They stood for a little while looking at the mist-grey distances.

They drove back by the Soissons road; they looked at nothing now and, since it had grown cool, they drew closer together and sat with clasped hands.

Leonor was thinking of the curious chances that had transported him, in a day or two, from Barnavast into the forest of Compiègne and had changed his profession from architecture to love. In spite of the fact that it seemed absurd and almost indelicate, he be-