“Mon Dieu!He spoke with such a mocking note in his voice that Larisa could not help smiling even while she tried to prevent herself from doing so.
“You should know,” Comte Raoul said sternly, “that governesses must never listen to gossip. They should trust their instincts, their senses and their eyes.”
“Perhaps that is what I am doing, Monsieur!”
Monsieur!”“Now you are definitely being unkind,” he protested. “I am not certain that you are the right person to teach Jean-Pierre. A child should learn only what is beautiful. Ugliness comes all too quickly once we have grown up.”
Larisa thought there was a bitter note in the Comte’s voice, but she merely said,
“That is what I would like to teach him, but even when we are old we can avoid the ugly things if we are sensible.”
“Do you really
