Book Four The Other Man Chapter 25 The Forest

"If she thinks I'm going to break my heart about him, she's mistaken. And so's He. I must be miserable for a bit," said Betty bravely, "but I'll not be miserable forever, so he needn't think it. Of course, I shall never care for anyone ever again--unless he were to love me for years and years before he ever said a word, and then I might say I would try.--And try. But fall in love?--Never again! Oh, good gracious, there he is,--and I've not begun to get ready."

Temple was whistling Deux Amants very softly in the courtyard below. She put her head out of the window.

"I shan't be two minutes," she said, "You might get the basket from Madame; and my sketching things are on the terrace all ready strapped up."

The hoofs of the smart gray pony slipped and rattled on the cobble-stones of the hotel entry.

"Au revoir: amuse yourselves well, my children." Madame Chevillon stood, one hand on fat hip, the other shading old eyes that they might watch the progress of the cart up the blinding whiteness of the village street.

"To the forest, and yet again to the forest and to the forest always," she said, turning into the darkened billiard room. "Marie, beware, thou, of the forest. The good God created it express for the lovers,--but it is permitted to the devil to promenade himself there also."