The old Seigneur stroked his chin as he looked at her.

He realised that a change had come upon her, that she had developed in some surprising way.
"What has happened--who has happened, Mademoiselle Rosalie ?" he asked.
He had suddenly made up his mind about that look in her face--he thought it the woman in her which answers to the call of man, not perhaps any particular man, but man the attractive influence, the complement.
Her eyes dropped, then raised frankly to his.

"I don't know,"-- adding, with a quick humour, for he had been very friendly with her, and joked with her in his dry way all her life; "do you, Monsieur ?" He pulled his nose with a quick gesture habitual to him, and answered slowly and meaningly: "The government's a good husband and pays regular wages, Mademoiselle.

I'd stick to government." "I am not asking for a divorce, Monsieur." He pulled his nose again delightedly--so many people were pathetically in earnest in Chaudiere--even the Cure's humour was too mediaeval and obvious.

He had never before thought Rosalie so separate from them all.
All at once he had a new interest in her.