"You inspire me with boundless confidence, but I can't help giving you a warning.

After all, you are a man, you are young and at liberty.

Let me beseech you, then, to respect the innocence of Mademoiselle Nioche!" Newman had wondered what was coming, and at this he broke into a laugh.
He was on the point of declaring that his own innocence struck him as the more exposed, but he contented himself with promising to treat the young girl with nothing less than veneration.

He found her waiting for him, seated upon the great divan in the Salon Carre.

She was not in her working-day costume, but wore her bonnet and gloves and carried her parasol, in honor of the occasion.