Doudan, getting him to talk about flowers. I was only a little girl, I wasn’t able to follow all he said. But he liked playing with me, and when he went back to your country he sent me a beautiful botany book to remind me of a drive we took together in a phaeton to the Val Richer, when I fell asleep on his knee. I have got the book still, and it taught me to observe many things about flowers which I should not have noticed otherwise. When Mme. de Barante published some of Mme. de Broglie’s letters, charming and affected like herself, I hoped to find among them some record of those conversations with Herr von Schlegel. But she was a woman who looked for nothing from nature but arguments in support of religion.”

Robert called me away to the far end of the room where he and his mother were.

“You have been good to me,” I said, “how can I thank you? Can we dine together tomorrow?”