Chapter: CHAPTER XXVI.

A BURIAL.


From this date my life did not want variety; I went out a good deal,
with the entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the
grade of my acquaintance. That worthy directress had never from the
first treated me otherwise than with respect; and when she found that I
was liable to frequent invitations from a chateau and a great hotel,
respect improved into distinction.

Not that she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was
in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of
self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain;
without, then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and
a toadie, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected
with her establishment should frequent such associates as must
cultivate and elevate, rather than those who might deteriorate and
depress. She never praised either me or my friends; only once when she
was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of coffee at her elbow and
the Gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable, and I came up and
asked leave of absence for the evening, she delivered herself in this
gracious sort:--

"Oui, oui, ma bonne amie: je vous donne la permission de coeur et de
gre. Votre travail dans ma maison a toujours ete admirable, rempli de
zele et de discretion: vous avez bien le droit de vous amuser. Sortez
donc tant que vous voudrez. Quant a votre choix de connaissances, j'en
suis contente; c'est sage, digne, laudable."

She closed her lips and resumed the Gazette.

The reader will not too gravely regard the little circumstance that
about this time the triply-enclosed packet of five letters temporarily
disappeared from my bureau. Blank dismay was naturally my first
sensation on making the discovery; but in a moment I took heart of
grace.

"Patience!" whispered I to myself. "Let me say nothing, but wait
peaceably; they will come back again."

And they did come back: they had only been on a short visit to Madame's
chamber; having passed their examination, they came back duly and
truly: I found them all right the next day.

I wonder what she thought of my correspondence? What estimate did she
form of Dr. John Bretton's epistolary powers? In what light did the
often very pithy thoughts, the generally sound, and sometimes original
opinions, set, without pretension, in an easily-flowing, spirited
style, appear to her? How did she like that genial, half humorous vein,
which to me gave such delight? What did she think of the few kind words
scattered here and there--not thickly, as the diamonds were scattered in
the valley of Sindbad, but sparely, as those gems lie in unfabled beds?
Oh, Madame Beck! how seemed these things to you?

I think in Madame Beck's eyes the five letters found a certain favour.
One day after she had _borrowed_ them of me (in speaking of so suave a
little woman, one ought to use suave terms), I caught her examining me
with a steady contemplative gaze, a little puzzled, but not at all
malevolent. It was during that brief space between lessons, when the
pupils turned out into the court for a quarter of an hour's recreation;
she and I remained in the first classe alone: when I met her eye, her
thoughts forced themselves partially through her lips.

"Il y a," said she, "quelquechose de bien remarquable dans le caractere
Anglais."

"How, Madame?"

She gave a little laugh, repeating the word "how" in English.

"Je ne saurais vous dire 'how;' mais, enfin, les Anglais ont des idees
a eux, en amitie, en amour, en tout. Mais au moins il n'est pas besoin
de les surveiller," she added, getting up and trotting away like the
compact little pony she was.

"Then I hope," murmured I to myself, "you will graciously let alone my
letters for the future."

Alas! something came rushing into my eyes, dimming utterly their
vision, blotting from sight the schoolroom, the garden, the bright
winter sun, as I remembered that never more would letters, such as she
had read, come to me. I had seen the last of them. That goodly river on
whose banks I had sojourned, of whose waves a few reviving drops had
trickled to my lips, was bending to another course: it was leaving my
little hut and field forlorn and sand-dry, pouring its wealth of waters
far away. The change was right, just, natural; not a word could be
said: but I loved my Rhine, my Nile; I had almost worshipped my Ganges,
and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged, should vanish
like a false mirage. Though stoical, I was not quite a stoic; drops
streamed fast on my hands, on my desk: I wept one sultry shower, heavy
and brief.

But soon I said to myself, "The Hope I am bemoaning suffered and made
me suffer much: it did not die till it was full time: following an
agony so lingering, death ought to be welcome."

Welcome I endeavoured to make it. Indeed, long pain had made patience a
habit. In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face, and
composed its limbs with great calm.

The letters, however, must be put away, out of sight: people who have
undergone bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away
mementos: it is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment
by sharp revival of regret.

One vacant holiday afternoon (the Thursday) going to my treasure, with
intent to consider its final disposal, I perceived--and this time with
a strong impulse of displeasure--that it had been again tampered with:
the packet was there, indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been
untied and retied; and by other symptoms I knew that my drawer had been
visited.

This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of
discretion, besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as
ever furnished a human head; that she should know the contents of my
casket, was not pleasant, but might be borne. Little Jesuit
inquisitress as she was, she could see things in a true light, and
understand them in an unperverted sense; but the idea that she had
ventured to communicate information, thus gained, to others; that she
had, perhaps, amused herself with a companion over documents, in my
eyes most sacred, shocked me cruelly. Yet, that such was the case I now
saw reason to fear; I even guessed her confidant. Her kinsman, M. Paul
Emanuel, had spent yesterday evening with her: she was much in the
habit of consulting him, and of discussing with him matters she
broached to no one else. This very morning, in class, that gentleman
had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have borrowed from
Vashti, the actress; I had not at the moment comprehended that blue,
yet lurid, flash out of his angry eye; but I read its meaning now.
_He_, I believed, was not apt to regard what concerned me from a fair
point of view, nor to judge me with tolerance and candour: I had always
found him severe and suspicious: the thought that these letters, mere
friendly letters as they were, had fallen once, and might fall again,
into his hands, jarred my very soul.

What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house
was it possible to find security or secresy? Where could a key be a
safeguard, or a padlock a barrier?

In the grenier? No, I did not like the grenier. Besides, most of the
boxes and drawers there were mouldering, and did not lock. Rats, too,
gnawed their way through the decayed wood; and mice made nests amongst
the litter of their contents: my dear letters (most dear still, though
Ichabod was written on their covers) might be consumed by vermin;
certainly the writing would soon become obliterated by damp. No; the
grenier would not do--but where then?

While pondering this problem, I sat in the dormitory window-seat. It
was a fine frosty afternoon; the winter sun, already setting, gleamed
pale on the tops of the garden-shrubs in the "allee defendue." One
great old pear-tree--the nun's pear-tree--stood up a tall dryad
skeleton, grey, gaunt, and stripped. A thought struck me--one of those
queer fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike solitary people. I
put on my bonnet, cloak, and furs, and went out into the city.

Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoax
and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy
moods, I wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a half
deserted "place" or square, I found myself before a sort of broker's
shop; an ancient place, full of ancient things. What I wanted was a
metal box which might be soldered, or a thick glass jar or bottle which
might be stoppered or sealed hermetically. Amongst miscellaneous heaps,
I found and purchased the latter article.

I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk,
bound them with twine, and, having put them in the bottle, got the old
Jew broker to stopper, seal, and make it air-tight. While obeying my
directions, he glanced at me now and then suspiciously from under his
frost-white eyelashes. I believe he thought there was some evil deed on
hand. In all this I had a dreary something--not pleasure--but a sad,
lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which I acted, the mood
controlling me, were similar to the impulse and the mood which had
induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained the
pensionnat just at dark, and in time for dinner.

At seven o'clock the moon rose. At half-past seven, when the pupils and
teachers were at study, and Madame Beck was with her mother and
children in the salle-a-manger, when the half-boarders were all gone
home, and Rosine had left the vestibule, and all was still--I shawled
myself, and, taking the sealed jar, stole out through the first-classe
door, into the berceau and thence into the "allee defendue."

Methusaleh, the pear-tree, stood at the further end of this walk, near
my seat: he rose up, dim and gray, above the lower shrubs round him.
Now Methusaleh, though so very old, was of sound timber still; only
there was a hole, or rather a deep hollow, near his root. I knew there
was such a hollow, hidden partly by ivy and creepers growing thick
round; and there I meditated hiding my treasure. But I was not only
going to hide a treasure--I meant also to bury a grief. That grief over
which I had lately been weeping, as I wrapped it in its winding-sheet,
must be interred.

Well, I cleared away the ivy, and found the hole; it was large enough
to receive the jar, and I thrust it deep in. In a tool-shed at the
bottom of the garden, lay the relics of building-materials, left by
masons lately employed to repair a part of the premises. I fetched
thence a slate and some mortar, put the slate on the hollow, secured it
with cement, covered the hole with black mould, and, finally, replaced
the ivy. This done, I rested, leaning against the tree; lingering, like
any other mourner, beside a newly-sodded grave.

The air of the night was very still, but dim with a peculiar mist,
which changed the moonlight into a luminous haze. In this air, or this
mist, there was some quality--electrical, perhaps--which acted in
strange sort upon me. I felt then as I had felt a year ago in
England--on a night when the aurora borealis was streaming and sweeping
round heaven, when, belated in lonely fields, I had paused to watch
that mustering of an army with banners--that quivering of serried
lances--that swift ascent of messengers from below the north star to
the dark, high keystone of heaven's arch. I felt, not happy, far
otherwise, but strong with reinforced strength.

If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed. I
pondered now how to break up my winter-quarters--to leave an encampment
where food and forage failed. Perhaps, to effect this change, another
pitched battle must be fought with fortune; if so, I had a mind to the
encounter: too poor to lose, God might destine me to gain. But what
road was open?--what plan available?

On this question I was still pausing, when the moon, so dim hitherto,
seemed to shine out somewhat brighter: a ray gleamed even white before
me, and a shadow became distinct and marked. I looked more narrowly, to
make out the cause of this well-defined contrast appearing a little
suddenly in the obscure alley: whiter and blacker it grew on my eye: it
took shape with instantaneous transformation. I stood about three yards
from a tall, sable-robed, snowy-veiled woman.

Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still.
I spoke.

"Who are you? and why do you come to me?"

She stood mute. She had no face--no features: all below her brow was
masked with a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me.

I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate; and desperation will
often suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced
one step. I stretched out my hand, for I meant to touch her. She seemed
to recede. I drew nearer: her recession, still silent, became swift. A
mass of shrubs, full-leaved evergreens, laurel and dense yew,
intervened between me and what I followed. Having passed that obstacle,
I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I said,--"If you have any errand to
men, come back and deliver it." Nothing spoke or re-appeared.

This time there was no Dr. John to whom to have recourse: there was no
one to whom I dared whisper the words, "I have again seen the nun."

       *       *       *       *       *

Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Crecy. In the old
Bretton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my
society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used
to notice that if I withdrew to my room, she would speedily come
trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her
little peremptory accent,--"Come down. Why do you sit here by yourself?
You must come into the parlour."

In the same spirit she urged me now--"Leave the Rue Fossette," she
said, "and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than
Madame Beck gives you."

Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum--thrice my present
salary--if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I
declined. I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was,
and with scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future
prospect. I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons;
but to be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to
me. Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would
deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of
gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in
peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made
shirts and starved.

I was no bright lady's shadow--not Miss de Bassompierre's. Overcast
enough it was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the
dimness and depression must both be voluntary--such as kept me docile
at my desk, in the midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame
Beck's first classe; or alone, at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or
in the alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden: my
qualifications were not convertible, nor adaptable; they could not be
made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of
any greatness in Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating,
understood each other well. I was not _her_ companion, nor her
children's governess; she left me free: she tied me to nothing--not to
herself--not even to her interests: once, when she had for a fortnight
been called from home by a near relation's illness, and on her return,
all anxious and full of care about her establishment, lest something in
her absence should have gone wrong finding that matters had proceeded
much as usual, and that there was no evidence of glaring neglect--she
made each of the teachers a present, in acknowledgment of steadiness.
To my bedside she came at twelve o'clock at night, and told me she had
no present for me: "I must make fidelity advantageous to the St.
Pierre," said she; "if I attempt to make it advantageous to you, there
will arise misunderstanding between us--perhaps separation. One thing,
however, I _can_ do to please you--leave you alone with your liberty:
c'est-ce que je ferai." She kept her word. Every slight shackle she had
ever laid on me, she, from that time, with quiet hand removed. Thus I
had pleasure in voluntarily respecting her rules: gratification in
devoting double time, in taking double pains with the pupils she
committed to my charge.

As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would
not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even
my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her.
M. de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture,
blind to this possibility; unconscious as any child to the signs, the
likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to an end, he
might not approve.

Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate.
Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen,
intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite
pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of
life. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his "daughterling"
as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion that
others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of what
should be done when "Polly" was a woman, when she should be grown up;
and "Polly," standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take
his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-grey
locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she
never said, "Papa, I _am_ grown up."

She had different moods for different people. With her father she
really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and
playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling
could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not
expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at moments she
tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him. His step
made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her answers
failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed and
disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.

"My little Polly," he said once, "you live too retired a life; if you
grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted
for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is
this? Don't you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather
partial to him?"

"_Rather_, papa," echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle and
simple tone.

"And you don't like him now? What has he done?"

"Nothing. Y--e--s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to
each other."

"Then rub it off, Polly; rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk
away when he is here, and have no fear of him?"

"_He_ does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa?"

"Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent
lady?"

"Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my
way, and that I have no unfriendly intention."

"Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is
only your whim!"

"Well, I'll improve, papa."

And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to
keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr.
John on general topics. The attention called into her guest's face a
pleasurable glow; he met her with caution, and replied to her in his
softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in
the air which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath.
Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to friendship, it could not
be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy charm.

When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father's chair.

"Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?"

"My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if
this improvement continues. By-and-by we shall see her receiving my
guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to
look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we
should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little
flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp
as you lisped when you were six years old."

"No, papa," interrupted she indignantly, "that can't be true."

"I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton's
question as to whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of
Bois l'Etang, say, 'yeth,' she had been there 'theveral' times?"

"Papa, you are satirical, you are mechant! I can pronounce all the
letters of the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this you are
very particular in making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like him
yourself?"

"To be sure: for old acquaintance sake I like him: then he is a very
good son to his mother; besides being a kind-hearted fellow and clever
in his profession: yes, the callant is well enough."

"_Callant_! Ah, Scotchman! Papa, is it the Edinburgh or the Aberdeen
accent you have?"

"Both, my pet, both: and doubtless the Glaswegian into the bargain. It
is that which enables me to speak French so well: a gude Scots tongue
always succeeds well at the French."

"_The_ French! Scotch again: incorrigible papa. You, too, need
schooling."

"Well, Polly, you must persuade Miss Snowe to undertake both you and
me; to make you steady and womanly, and me refined and classical."

The light in which M. de Bassompierre evidently regarded "Miss Snowe,"
used to occasion me much inward edification. What contradictory
attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to
the eye with which we are viewed! Madame Beck esteemed me learned and
blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model
teacher, the essence of the sedate and discreet: somewhat conventional,
perhaps, too strict, limited, and scrupulous, but still the pink and
pattern of governess-correctness; whilst another person, Professor Paul
Emanuel, to wit, never lost an opportunity of intimating his opinion
that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature--adventurous, indocile,
and audacious. I smiled at them all. If any one knew me it was little
Paulina Mary.

As I would not be Paulina's nominal and paid companion, genial and
harmonious as I began to find her intercourse, she persuaded me to join
her in some study, as a regular and settled means of sustaining
communication: she proposed the German language, which, like myself,
she found difficult of mastery. We agreed to take our lessons in the
Rue Crecy of the same mistress; this arrangement threw us together for
some hours of every week. M. de Bassompierre seemed quite pleased: it
perfectly met his approbation, that Madame Minerva Gravity should
associate a portion of her leisure with that of his fair and dear child.

That other self-elected judge of mine, the professor in the Rue
Fossette, discovering by some surreptitious spying means, that I was no
longer so stationary as hitherto, but went out regularly at certain
hours of certain days, took it upon himself to place me under
surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst
Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his
manoeuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a
more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would analyze
his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and forthwith indulge
in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not whether I was more
amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one morning and whispering
solemnly that he "had his eye on me: _he_ at least would discharge the
duty of a friend, and not leave me entirely to my own devices. My
proceedings seemed at present very unsettled: he did not know what to
make of them: he thought his cousin Beck very much to blame in
suffering this sort of fluttering inconsistency in a teacher attached
to her house. What had a person devoted to a serious calling, that of
education, to do with Counts and Countesses, hotels and chateaux? To
him, I seemed altogether 'en l'air.' On his faith, he believed I went
out six days in the seven."

I said, "Monsieur exaggerated. I certainly had enjoyed the advantage of
a little change lately, but not before it had become necessary; and the
privilege was by no means exercised in excess."

"Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed?
Change necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic
'religieuses,' and study _their_ lives. _They_ asked no change."

I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke,
but it was one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless,
worldly, and epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst
for the pomps and vanities of life. It seems I had no "devouement," no
"recueillement" in my character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice,
or self-abasement. Feeling the inutility of answering these charges, I
mutely continued the correction of a pile of English exercises.

"He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I
revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism."

I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of
silence.

A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a
"juron:" he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the
word _sacre_. Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated, with the
unequivocal addition of _mille_ something, when I passed him about two
hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and take my German
lesson in the Rue Crecy. Never was a better little man, in some points,
than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little despot.

       *       *       *       *       *

Our German mistress, Fraeulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman,
of about forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of
Queen Elizabeth, as she habitually consumed, for her first and second
breakfasts, beer and beef: also, her direct and downright Deutsch
nature seemed to suffer a sensation of cruel restraint from what she
called our English reserve; though we thought we were very cordial with
her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we consented to
kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive smack.
These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably; still, on the
whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct foreign girls, who
hardly ever will think and study for themselves--who have no idea of
grappling with a difficulty, and overcoming it by dint of reflection or
application--our progress, which in truth was very leisurely, seemed to
astound her. In her eyes, we were a pair of glacial prodigies, cold,
proud, and preternatural.

The young Countess _was_ a little proud, a little fastidious: and
perhaps, with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these
feelings; but I think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I
never evaded the morning salute, which Paulina would slip when she
could; nor was a certain little manner of still disdain a weapon known
in my armoury of defence; whereas, Paulina always kept it clear, fine,
and bright, and any rough German sally called forth at once its steelly
glisten.

Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while she
half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph--an
Undine--she took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of easier
mood.

A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller's Ballads;
Paulina soon learned to read them beautifully; the Fraeulein would
listen to her with a broad smile of pleasure, and say her voice sounded
like music. She translated them, too, with a facile flow of language,
and in a strain of kindred and poetic fervour: her cheek would flush,
her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes kindle or melt as she
went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often recite them when
we were alone together. One she liked well was "Des Maedchens Klage:"
that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she found plaintive melody
in the sound; the sense she would criticise. She murmured, as we sat
over the fire one evening:--

  Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurueck,
  Ich habe genossen das irdische Glueck,
    Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!

"Lived and loved!" said she, "is that the summit of earthly happiness,
the end of life--to love? I don't think it is. It may be the extreme of
mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of
feeling. If Schiller had said to _be_ loved, he might have come nearer
the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?"

"I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to
you? What do you know about it?"

She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.

"Now, Lucy," she said, "I won't take that from you. It may be well for
papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view
me; but _you_ know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am verging on
my nineteenth year."

"No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings
by discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love."

"Indeed, indeed!" said she--all in hurry and heat--"you may think to
check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I _have_ talked about
it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and
disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn't approve."

And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not
discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed.
Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance--combined with
some transient perverseness and petulance--I said at last,--

"Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who
that has near access to you would dare to do it?"

"Lucy," replied she more softly, "it is a person who makes me miserable
sometimes; and I wish she would keep away--I don't want her."

"But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much."

"It is--it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit Mrs.
Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she begins
to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all she has
to say about love."

"Oh, I have heard it," said I, quite coolly; "and on the whole, perhaps
it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be regretted,
it is all right. Yet, surely, Ginevra's mind cannot influence yours.
You can look over both her head and her heart."

"She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my
happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the feelings
and people dearest to me."

"What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be
counteraction of the damage done."

"The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She
does not spare Mrs. Bretton--she does not spare.... Graham."

"No, I daresay: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and
her...._love_? She does mix them, I suppose?"

"Lucy, she is insolent; and, I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton. We
both know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever mean
or slavish? Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her feet,
pursuing her like her shadow. She--repulsing him with insult, and he
imploring her with infatuation. Lucy, is it true? Is any of it true?"

"It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him
out as still her suitor?"

"She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent."

"It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner
towards Graham which your father noticed."

"They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As
Ginevra speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed truth:
I believe she exaggerates--perhaps invents--but I want to know how far."

"Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity
of displaying the power she boasts."

"I could do that to-morrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner,
all savants. Graham, who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant,
too--skilled, they say, in more than one branch of science--is among
the number. Now I should be miserable to sit at table unsupported,
amidst such a party. I could not talk to Messieurs A---- and Z----, the
Parisian Academicians: all my new credit for manner would be put in
peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; Ginevra, at a word,
will join you."

"Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have the
chance of justifying her character for veracity."





CHAPTER XXVII.

THE HOTEL CRECY.


The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we--or than I, at
least--had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the young
princes of Labassecour--the eldest, I think, the Duc de Dindonneau, and
a general holiday was given in his honour at the schools, and
especially at the principal "Athenee," or college. The youth of that
institution had also concocted, and were to present a loyal address;
for which purpose they were to be assembled in the public building
where the yearly examinations were conducted, and the prizes
distributed. After the ceremony of presentation, an oration, or
"discours," was to follow from one of the professors.

Several of M. de Bassompierre's friends--the savants--being more or less
connected with the Athenee, they were expected to attend on this
occasion; together with the worshipful municipality of Villette, M. le
Chevalier Staas, the burgomaster, and the parents and kinsfolk of the
Athenians in general. M. de Bassompierre was engaged by his friends to
accompany them; his fair daughter would, of course, be of the party,
and she wrote a little note to Ginevra and myself, bidding us come
early that we might join her.

As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the Rue
Fossette, she (Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh.

"What now?" I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging
her attire, and was gazing at me.

"It seems so odd," she replied, with her usual half-honest
half-insolent unreserve, "that you and I should now be so much on a
level, visiting in the same sphere; having the same connections."

"Why, yes," said I; "I had not much respect for the connections you
chiefly frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never
have suited me at all."

"Who _are_ you, Miss Snowe?" she inquired, in a tone of such
undisguised and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my turn.

"You used to call yourself a nursery governess; when you first came
here you really had the care of the children in this house: I have seen
you carry little Georgette in your arms, like a bonne--few governesses
would have condescended so far--and now Madame Beck treats you with
more courtesy than she treats the Parisienne, St. Pierre; and that
proud chit, my cousin, makes you her bosom friend!"

"Wonderful!" I agreed, much amused at her mystification. "Who am I
indeed? Perhaps a personage in disguise. Pity I don't look the
character."

"I wonder you are not more flattered by all this," she went on; "you
take it with strange composure. If you really are the nobody I once
thought you, you must be a cool hand."

"The nobody you once thought me!" I repeated, and my face grew a little
hot; but I would not be angry: of what importance was a school-girl's
crude use of the terms nobody and somebody? I confined myself,
therefore, to the remark that I had merely met with civility; and asked
"what she saw in civility to throw the recipient into a fever of
confusion?"

"One can't help wondering at some things," she persisted.

"Wondering at marvels of your own manufacture. Are you ready at last?"

"Yes; let me take your arm."

"I would rather not: we will walk side by side."

When she took my arm, she always leaned upon me her whole weight; and,
as I was not a gentleman, or her lover, I did not like it.

"There, again!" she cried. "I thought, by offering to take your arm, to
intimate approbation of your dress and general appearance: I meant it
as a compliment."

"You did? You meant, in short, to express that you are not ashamed to
be seen in the street with me? That if Mrs. Cholmondeley should be
fondling her lapdog at some window, or Colonel de Hamal picking his
teeth in a balcony, and should catch a glimpse of us, you would not
quite blush for your companion?"

"Yes," said she, with that directness which was her best point--which
gave an honest plainness to her very fibs when she told them--which
was, in short, the salt, the sole preservative ingredient of a
character otherwise not formed to keep.

I delegated the trouble of commenting on this "yes" to my countenance;
or rather, my under-lip voluntarily anticipated my tongue of course,
reverence and solemnity were not the feelings expressed in the look I
gave her.

"Scornful, sneering creature!" she went on, as we crossed a great
square, and entered the quiet, pleasant park, our nearest way to the
Rue Crecy. "Nobody in this world was ever such a Turk to me as you are!"

"You bring it on yourself: let me alone: have the sense to be quiet: I
will let you alone."

"As if one _could_ let you alone, when you are so peculiar and so
mysterious!"

"The mystery and peculiarity being entirely the conception of your own
brain--maggots--neither more nor less, be so good as to keep them out
of my sight."

"But _are_ you anybody?" persevered she, pushing her hand, in spite of
me, under my arm; and that arm pressed itself with inhospitable
closeness against my side, by way of keeping out the intruder.

"Yes," I said, "I am a rising character: once an old lady's companion,
then a nursery-governess, now a school-teacher."

"Do--_do_ tell me who you are? I'll not repeat it," she urged, adhering
with ludicrous tenacity to the wise notion of an incognito she had got
hold of; and she squeezed the arm of which she had now obtained full
possession, and coaxed and conjured till I was obliged to pause in the
park to laugh. Throughout our walk she rang the most fanciful changes
on this theme; proving, by her obstinate credulity, or incredulity, her
incapacity to conceive how any person not bolstered up by birth or
wealth, not supported by some consciousness of name or connection,
could maintain an attitude of reasonable integrity. As for me, it quite
sufficed to my mental tranquillity that I was known where it imported
that known I should be; the rest sat on me easily: pedigree, social
position, and recondite intellectual acquisition, occupied about the
same space and place in my interests and thoughts; they were my
third-class lodgers--to whom could be assigned only the small
sitting-room and the little back bedroom: even if the dining and
drawing-rooms stood empty, I never confessed it to them, as thinking
minor accommodations better suited to their circumstances. The world, I
soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world
is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong
in mine.

There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss
of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified in
placing the highest value on that station and association which is
their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become
contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry
were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not
capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these
fatal facts out of sight--for starting, trembling, quailing at the
chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more out
experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's
conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of
small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the
man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed.

We reached the Hotel Crecy; Paulina was ready; Mrs. Bretton was with
her; and, under her escort and that of M. de Bassompierre, we were soon
conducted to the place of assembly, and seated in good seats, at a
convenient distance from the Tribune. The youth of the Athenee were
marshalled before us, the municipality and their bourgmestre were in
places of honour, the young princes, with their tutors, occupied a
conspicuous position, and the body of the building was crowded with the
aristocracy and first burghers of the town.

Concerning the identity of the professor by whom the "discours" was to
be delivered, I had as yet entertained neither care nor question. Some
vague expectation I had that a savant would stand up and deliver a
formal speech, half dogmatism to the Athenians, half flattery to the
princes.

The Tribune was yet empty when we entered, but in ten minutes after it
was filled; suddenly, in a second of time, a head, chest, and arms grew
above the crimson desk. This head I knew: its colour, shape, port,
expression, were familiar both to me and Miss Fanshawe; the blackness
and closeness of cranium, the amplitude and paleness of brow, the
blueness and fire of glance, were details so domesticated in the
memory, and so knit with many a whimsical association, as almost by
this their sudden apparition, to tickle fancy to a laugh. Indeed, I
confess, for my part, I did laugh till I was warm; but then I bent my
head, and made my handkerchief and a lowered veil the sole confidants
of my mirth.

I think I was glad to see M. Paul; I think it was rather pleasant than
otherwise, to behold him set up there, fierce and frank, dark and
candid, testy and fearless, as when regnant on his estrade in class.
His presence was such a surprise: I had not once thought of expecting
him, though I knew he filled the chair of Belles Lettres in the
college. With _him_ in that Tribune, I felt sure that neither formalism
nor flattery would be our doom; but for what was vouchsafed us, for
what was poured suddenly, rapidly, continuously, on our heads--I own I
was not prepared.

He spoke to the princes, the nobles, the magistrates, and the burghers,
with just the same ease, with almost the same pointed, choleric
earnestness, with which he was wont to harangue the three divisions of
the Rue Fossette. The collegians he addressed, not as schoolboys, but
as future citizens and embryo patriots. The times which have since come
on Europe had not been foretold yet, and M. Emanuel's spirit seemed new
to me. Who would have thought the flat and fat soil of Labassecour
could yield political convictions and national feelings, such as were
now strongly expressed? Of the bearing of his opinions I need here give
no special indication; yet it may be permitted me to say that I
believed the little man not more earnest than right in what he said:
with all his fire he was severe and sensible; he trampled Utopian
theories under his heel; he rejected wild dreams with scorn;--but when
he looked in the face of tyranny--oh, then there opened a light in his
eye worth seeing; and when he spoke of injustice, his voice gave no
uncertain sound, but reminded me rather of the band-trumpet, ringing at
twilight from the park.

I do not think his audience were generally susceptible of sharing his
flame in its purity; but some of the college youth caught fire as he
eloquently told them what should be their path and endeavour in their
country's and in Europe's future. They gave him a long, loud, ringing
cheer, as he concluded: with all his fierceness, he was their favourite
professor.

As our party left the Hall, he stood at the entrance; he saw and knew
me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered the
words "Qu'en dites vous?"--question eminently characteristic, and
reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive
restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-control,
which were amongst his faults. He should not have cared just then to
ask what I thought, or what anybody thought, but he _did_ care, and he
was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress his wish. Well! if
I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his _naivete_. I would have
praised him: I had plenty of praise in my heart; but, alas! no words on
my lips. Who _has_ words at the right moment? I stammered some lame
expressions; but was truly glad when other people, coming up with
profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by their redundancy.

A gentleman introduced him to M. de Bassompierre; and the Count, who
had likewise been highly gratified, asked him to join his friends (for
the most part M. Emanuel's likewise), and to dine with them at the
Hotel Crecy. He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy
at meeting the advances of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy
independence in the stringing of his sinews--not obtrusive, but
pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in knowledge of his
character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, M. A----,
a French Academician, in the course of the evening.

At dinner that day, Ginevra and Paulina each looked, in her own way,
very beautiful; the former, perhaps, boasted the advantage in material
charms, but the latter shone pre-eminent for attractions more subtle
and spiritual: for light and eloquence of eye, for grace of mien, for
winning variety of expression. Ginevra's dress of deep crimson relieved
well her light curls, and harmonized with her rose-like bloom.
Paulina's attire--in fashion close, though faultlessly neat, but in
texture clear and white--made the eye grateful for the delicate life of
her complexion, for the soft animation of her countenance, for the
tender depth of her eyes, for the brown shadow and bounteous flow of
her hair--darker than that of her Saxon cousin, as were also her
eyebrows, her eyelashes, her full irids, and large mobile pupils.
Nature having traced all these details slightly, and with a careless
hand, in Miss Fanshawe's case; and in Miss de Bassompierre's, wrought
them to a high and delicate finish.

Paulina was awed by the savants, but not quite to mutism: she conversed
modestly, diffidently; not without effort, but with so true a
sweetness, so fine and penetrating a sense, that her father more than
once suspended his own discourse to listen, and fixed on her an eye of
proud delight. It was a polite Frenchman, M. Z----, a very learned, but
quite a courtly man, who had drawn her into discourse. I was charmed
with her French; it was faultless--the structure correct, the idioms
true, the accent pure; Ginevra, who had lived half her life on the
Continent, could do nothing like it not that words ever failed Miss
Fanshawe, but real accuracy and purity she neither possessed, nor in
any number of years would acquire. Here, too, M. de Bassompierre was
gratified; for, on the point of language, he was critical.

Another listener and observer there was; one who, detained by some
exigency of his profession, had come in late to dinner. Both ladies
were quietly scanned by Dr. Bretton, at the moment of taking his seat
at the table; and that guarded survey was more than once renewed. His
arrival roused Miss Fanshawe, who had hitherto appeared listless: she
now became smiling and complacent, talked--though what she said was
rarely to the purpose--or rather, was of a purpose somewhat
mortifyingly below the standard of the occasion. Her light,
disconnected prattle might have gratified Graham once; perhaps it
pleased him still: perhaps it was only fancy which suggested the
thought that, while his eye was filled and his ear fed, his taste, his
keen zest, his lively intelligence, were not equally consulted and
regaled. It is certain that, restless and exacting as seemed the demand
on his attention, he yielded courteously all that was required: his
manner showed neither pique nor coolness: Ginevra was his neighbour,
and to her, during dinner, he almost exclusively confined his notice.
She appeared satisfied, and passed to the drawing-room in very good
spirits.

Yet, no sooner had we reached that place of refuge, than she again
became flat and listless: throwing herself on a couch, she denounced
both the "discours" and the dinner as stupid affairs, and inquired of
her cousin how she could hear such a set of prosaic "gros-bonnets" as
her father gathered about him. The moment the gentlemen were heard to
move, her railings ceased: she started up, flew to the piano, and
dashed at it with spirit. Dr. Bretton entering, one of the first, took
up his station beside her. I thought he would not long maintain that
post: there was a position near the hearth to which I expected to see
him attracted: this position he only scanned with his eye; while _he_
looked, others drew in. The grace and mind of Paulina charmed these
thoughtful Frenchmen: the fineness of her beauty, the soft courtesy of
her manner, her immature, but real and inbred tact, pleased their
national taste; they clustered about her, not indeed to talk science;
which would have rendered her dumb, but to touch on many subjects in
letters, in arts, in actual life, on which it soon appeared that she
had both read and reflected. I listened. I am sure that though Graham
stood aloof, he listened too: his hearing as well as his vision was
very fine, quick, discriminating. I knew he gathered the conversation;
I felt that the mode in which it was sustained suited him
exquisitely--pleased him almost to pain.

In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character; than
most people thought--than Graham himself imagined--than she would ever
show to those who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader, there
is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable refinement,
without strength as excellent, as complete, as trustworthy. As well
might you look for good fruit and blossom on a rootless and sapless
tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble and relaxed nature.
For a little while, the blooming semblance of beauty may flourish round
weakness; but it cannot bear a blast: it soon fades, even in serenest
sunshine. Graham would have started had any suggestive spirit whispered
of the sinew and the stamina sustaining that delicate nature; but I who
had known her as a child, knew or guessed by what a good and strong
root her graces held to the firm soil of reality.

While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle,
his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by chance
on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de
Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called "a
two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as a
tete-a-tete. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me how
I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own
thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to
me--a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became
silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina
were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both
forms--studied both faces.

Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room
since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst the
gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by
glimpses, a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an
inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the gentlemen
present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies, excepting
myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see me, and
naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr. Bretton
also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all, there
would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with holding
back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and looked so
ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle. M. Joseph
Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at this very
moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-touch
succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones the
instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!

"Lucy," began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra
glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, "Miss Fanshawe is
certainly a fine girl."

Of course I assented.

"Is there," he pursued, "another in the room as lovely?"

"I think there is not another as handsome."

"I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in taste,
I think; or at least in judgment."

"Do we?" I said, somewhat doubtfully.

"I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl--my mother's
god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:
our opinions would have melted into each other."

He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic,
shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one
solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy
Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same
but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station, would
your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what they
actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously infer
blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then mine was
a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament--it fell if a cloud
crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I should stand
more at fault than you.

Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my
heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to
others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no
more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired
calmly,--"On what points are we so closely in accordance?"

"We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit
for the possession; yet I have it."

"But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet
estimate them differently?"

"Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage
to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the
room?--my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs A----
and Z----; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?"

"You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs
A---- and Z----."

"And the other?"

"I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady--pale, certainly, just
now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement."

"You don't remember her as a child?"

"I wonder, sometimes, whether you do."

"I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances,
persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may, under
certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's mind,
revive."

"That is possible enough."

"Yet," he continued, "the revival is imperfect--needs confirmation,
partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one of
a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for
corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr.
Home brought his little girl, whom we then called 'little Polly,' to
stay with mamma?"

"I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away."

"Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was
I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or kindly
about me--great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don't recollect
me, of course?"

"You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you
personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day."

"But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What
am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?"

"Gracious to whatever pleased you--unkindly or cruel to nothing."

"There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to _you_, for
instance."

"A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured brutality."

"_This_, however, I _do_ remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted nothing of
my grace."

"As little of your cruelty."

"Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being
inoffensive as a shadow."

I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!--I just wished he would let me
alone--cease allusion to me. These epithets--these attributes I put
from me. His "quiet Lucy Snowe," his "inoffensive shadow," I gave him
back; not with scorn, but with extreme weariness: theirs was the
coldness and the pressure of lead; let him whelm me with no such
weight. Happily, he was soon on another theme.

"On what terms were 'little Polly' and I? Unless my recollections
deceive me, we were not foes--"

"You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly's memory, not more
definite?"

"Oh! we don't talk of 'little Polly' _now_. Pray say, Miss de
Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers
nothing of Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word
in the page of memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a
horn-book? She does not know that I partly taught her to read."

"In the Bible on Sunday nights?"

"She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little
restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child's
preference--what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of
me!"

"I think she was in some measure fond of you," said I, moderately.

"You don't remember then? _I_ had forgotten; but I remember _now_. She
liked me the best of whatever there was at Bretton."

"You thought so."

"I quite well recall it. I wish I could tell her all I recall; or
rather, I wish some one, you for instance, would go behind and whisper
it all in her ear, and I could have the delight--here, as I sit--of
watching her look under the intelligence. Could you manage that, think
you, Lucy, and make me ever grateful?"

"Could I manage to make you ever grateful?" said I. "No, _I could
not_." And I felt my fingers work and my hands interlock: I felt, too,
an inward courage, warm and resistant. In this matter I was not
disposed to gratify Dr. John: not at all. With now welcome force, I
realized his entire misapprehension of my character and nature. He
wanted always to give me a role not mine. Nature and I opposed him. He
did not at all guess what I felt: he did not read my eyes, or face, or
gestures; though, I doubt not, all spoke. Leaning towards me coaxingly,
he said, softly, "_Do_ content me, Lucy."

And I would have contented, or, at least, I would clearly have
enlightened him, and taught him well never again to expect of me the
part of officious soubrette in a love drama; when, following his, soft,
eager, murmur, meeting almost his pleading, mellow--"_Do_ content me,
Lucy!" a sharp hiss pierced my ear on the other side.

"Petite chatte, doucerette, coquette!" sibillated the sudden
boa-constrictor; "vous avez l'air bien triste, soumis, reveur, mais
vous ne l'etes pas: c'est moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme a
l'ame, l'eclair aux yeux!"

"Oui; j'ai la flamme a l'ame, et je dois l'avoir!" retorted I, turning
in just wrath: but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was gone.

The worst of the matter was, that Dr. Bretton, whose ears, as I have
said, were quick and fine, caught every word of this apostrophe; he put
his handkerchief to his face, and laughed till he shook.

"Well done, Lucy," cried he; "capital! petite chatte, petite coquette!
Oh, I must tell my mother! Is it true, Lucy, or half-true? I believe it
is: you redden to the colour of Miss Fanshawe's gown. And really, by my
word, now I examine him, that is the same little man who was so savage
with you at the concert: the very same, and in his soul he is frantic
at this moment because he sees me laughing. Oh! I must tease him."

And Graham, yielding to his bent for mischief, laughed, jested, and
whispered on till I could bear no more, and my eyes filled.

Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de
Bassompierre; the circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve. This
movement was instantly caught by Graham's eye--ever-vigilant, even
while laughing; he rose, took his courage in both hands, crossed the
room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his whole
life, was a man of luck--a man of success. And why? Because he had the
eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action,
the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged
him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How well he
looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he reached her
side, her glance mingled at once with an encountering glance, animated,
yet modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became half a blush, half a
glow. He stood in her presence brave and bashful: subdued and
unobtrusive, yet decided in his purpose and devoted in his ardour. I
gathered all this by one view. I did not prolong my observation--time
failed me, had inclination served: the night wore late; Ginevra and I
ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. I rose, and bade
good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre.

I know not whether Professor Emanuel had noticed my reluctant
acceptance of Dr. Bretton's badinage, or whether he perceived that I
was pained, and that, on the whole, the evening had not been one flow
of exultant enjoyment for the volatile, pleasure-loving Mademoiselle
Lucie; but, as I was leaving the room, he stepped up and inquired
whether I had any one to attend me to the Rue Fossette. The professor
_now_ spoke politely, and even deferentially, and he looked apologetic
and repentant; but I could not recognise his civility at a word, nor
meet his contrition with crude, premature oblivion. Never hitherto had
I felt seriously disposed to resent his brusqueries, or freeze before
his fierceness; what he had said to-night, however, I considered
unwarranted: my extreme disapprobation of the proceeding must be
marked, however slightly. I merely said:--"I am provided with
attendance."

Which was true, as Ginevra and I were to be sent home in the carriage;
and I passed him with the sliding obeisance with which he was wont to
be saluted in classe by pupils crossing his estrade.

Having sought my shawl, I returned to the vestibule. M. Emanuel stood
there as if waiting. He observed that the night was fine.

"Is it?" I said, with a tone and manner whose consummate chariness and
frostiness I could not but applaud. It was so seldom I could properly
act out my own resolution to be reserved and cool where I had been
grieved or hurt, that I felt almost proud of this one successful
effort. That "Is it?" sounded just like the manner of other people. I
had heard hundreds of such little minced, docked, dry phrases, from the
pursed-up coral lips of a score of self-possessed, self-sufficing
misses and mesdemoiselles. That M. Paul would not stand any prolonged
experience of this sort of dialogue I knew; but he certainly merited a
sample of the curt and arid. I believe he thought so himself, for he
took the dose quietly. He looked at my shawl and objected to its
lightness. I decidedly told him it was as heavy as I wished. Receding
aloof, and standing apart, I leaned on the banister of the stairs,
folded my shawl about me, and fixed my eyes on a dreary religious
painting darkening the wall.

Ginevra was long in coming: tedious seemed her loitering. M. Paul was
still there; my ear expected from his lips an angry tone. He came
nearer. "Now for another hiss!" thought I: had not the action been too
uncivil I could have, stopped my ears with my fingers in terror of the
thrill. Nothing happens as we expect: listen for a coo or a murmur; it
is then you will hear a cry of prey or pain. Await a piercing shriek,
an angry threat, and welcome an amicable greeting, a low kind whisper.
M. Paul spoke gently:--"Friends," said he, "do not quarrel for a word.
Tell me, was it I or ce grand fat d'Anglais" (so he profanely
denominated Dr. Bretton), "who made your eyes so humid, and your cheeks
so hot as they are even now?"

"I am not conscious of you, monsieur, or of any other having excited
such emotion as you indicate," was my answer; and in giving it, I again
surpassed my usual self, and achieved a neat, frosty falsehood.

"But what did I say?" he pursued; "tell me: I was angry: I have
forgotten my words; what were they?"

"Such as it is best to forget!" said I, still quite calm and chill.

"Then it was _my_ words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid: permit
my retractation; accord my pardon."

"I am not angry, Monsieur."

"Then you are worse than angry--grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy."

"M. Emanuel, I _do_ forgive you."

"Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that
alien tone, 'Mon ami, je vous pardonne.'"

He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his
simplicity, his earnestness?

"Bon!" he cried. "Voila que le jour va poindre! Dites donc, mon ami."

"Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne."

"I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe
you sincere: another effort--_mon ami_, or else in English,--my friend!"

Now, "my friend" had rather another sound and significancy than "_mon
ami_;" it did not breathe the same sense of domestic and intimate
affection; "_mon ami_" I could _not_ say to M. Paul; "my friend," I
could, and did say without difficulty. This distinction existed not for
him, however, and he was quite satisfied with the English phrase. He
smiled. You should have seen him smile, reader; and you should have
marked the difference between his countenance now, and that he wore
half an hour ago. I cannot affirm that I had ever witnessed the smile
of pleasure, or content, or kindness round M. Paul's lips, or in his
eyes before. The ironic, the sarcastic, the disdainful, the
passionately exultant, I had hundreds of times seen him express by what
he called a smile, but any illuminated sign of milder or warmer
feelings struck me as wholly new in his visage. It changed it as from a
mask to a face: the deep lines left his features; the very complexion
seemed clearer and fresher; that swart, sallow, southern darkness which
spoke his Spanish blood, became displaced by a lighter hue. I know not
that I have ever seen in any other human face an equal metamorphosis
from a similar cause. He now took me to the carriage: at the same
moment M. de Bassompierre came out with his niece.

In a pretty humour was Mistress Fanshawe; she had found the evening a
grand failure: completely upset as to temper, she gave way to the most
uncontrolled moroseness as soon as we were seated, and the
carriage-door closed. Her invectives against Dr. Bretton had something
venomous in them. Having found herself impotent either to charm or
sting him, hatred was her only resource; and this hatred she expressed
in terms so unmeasured and proportion so monstrous, that, after
listening for a while with assumed stoicism, my outraged sense of
justice at last and suddenly caught fire. An explosion ensued: for I
could be passionate, too; especially with my present fair but faulty
associate, who never failed to stir the worst dregs of me. It was well
that the carriage-wheels made a tremendous rattle over the flinty
Choseville pavement, for I can assure the reader there was neither dead
silence nor calm discussion within the vehicle. Half in earnest, half
in seeming, I made it my business to storm down Ginevra. She had set
out rampant from the Rue Crecy; it was necessary to tame her before we
reached the Rue Fossette: to this end it was indispensable to show up
her sterling value and high deserts; and this must be done in language
of which the fidelity and homeliness might challenge comparison with
the compliments of a John Knox to a Mary Stuart. This was the right
discipline for Ginevra; it suited her. I am quite sure she went to bed
that night all the better and more settled in mind and mood, and slept
all the more sweetly for having undergone a sound moral drubbing.





CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE WATCHGUARD.


M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of
interruption, from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to
pass through the classe under such circumstances was considered by the
teachers and pupils of the school, individually and collectively, to be
as much as a woman's or girl's life was worth.

Madame Beck herself, if forced to the enterprise, would "skurry"
through, retrenching her skirts, and carefully coasting the formidable
estrade, like a ship dreading breakers. As to Rosine, the portress--on
whom, every half-hour, devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils out
of the very heart of one or other of the divisions to take their
music-lessons in the oratory, the great or little saloon, the
salle-a-manger, or some other piano-station--she would, upon her second
or third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess of
consternation--a sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled
at her through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles.

One morning I was sitting in the carre, at work upon a piece of
embroidery which one of the pupils had commenced but delayed to finish,
and while my fingers wrought at the frame, my ears regaled themselves
with listening to the crescendos and cadences of a voice haranguing in
the neighbouring classe, in tones that waxed momentarily more unquiet,
more ominously varied. There was a good strong partition-wall between
me and the gathering storm, as well as a facile means of flight through
the glass-door to the court, in case it swept this way; so I am afraid
I derived more amusement than alarm from these thickening symptoms.
Poor Rosine was not safe: four times that blessed morning had she made
the passage of peril; and now, for the fifth time, it became her
dangerous duty to snatch, as it were, a brand from the burning--a pupil
from under M. Paul's nose.

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" cried she. "Que vais-je devenir? Monsieur va me
tuer, je suis sure; car il est d'une colere!"

Nerved by the courage of desperation, she opened the door.

"Mademoiselle La Malle au piano!" was her cry.

Ere she could make good her retreat, or quite close the door, this
voice uttered itself:--

"Des ce moment!--la classe est defendue. La premiere qui ouvrira cette
porte, ou passera par cette division, sera pendue--fut-ce Madame Beck
elle-meme!"

Ten minutes had not succeeded the promulgation of this decree when
Rosine's French pantoufles were again heard shuffling along the
corridor.

"Mademoiselle," said she, "I would not for a five-franc piece go into
that classe again just now: Monsieur's lunettes are really terrible;
and here is a commissionaire come with a message from the Athenee. I
have told Madame Beck I dare not deliver it, and she says I am to
charge you with it."

"Me? No, that is rather too bad! It is not in my line of duty. Come,
come, Rosine! bear your own burden. Be brave--charge once more!"

"I, Mademoiselle?--impossible! Five times I have crossed him this day.
Madame must really hire a gendarme for this service. Ouf! Je n'en puis
plus!"

"Bah! you are only a coward. What is the message?"

"Precisely of the kind with which Monsieur least likes to be pestered:
an urgent summons to go directly to the Athenee, as there is an
official visitor--inspector--I know not what--arrived, and Monsieur
_must_ meet him: you know how he hates a _must_."

Yes, I knew well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb:
against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt.
However, I accepted the responsibility--not, certainly, without fear,
but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst them. I opened
the door, I entered, I closed it behind me as quickly and quietly as a
rather unsteady hand would permit; for to be slow or bustling, to
rattle a latch, or leave a door gaping wide, were aggravations of crime
often more disastrous in result than the main crime itself. There I
stood then, and there he sat; his humour was visibly bad--almost at its
worst; he had been giving a lesson in arithmetic--for he gave lessons
on any and every subject that struck his fancy--and arithmetic being a
dry subject, invariably disagreed with him: not a pupil but trembled
when he spoke of figures. He sat, bent above his desk: to look up at
the sound of an entrance, at the occurrence of a direct breach of his
will and law, was an effort he could not for the moment bring himself
to make. It was quite as well: I thus gained time to walk up the long
classe; and it suited my idiosyncracy far better to encounter the near
burst of anger like his, than to bear its menace at a distance.

At his estrade I paused, just in front; of course I was not worthy of
immediate attention: he proceeded with his lesson. Disdain would not
do: he must hear and he must answer my message.

Not being quite tall enough to lift my head over his desk, elevated
upon the estrade, and thus suffering eclipse in my present position, I
ventured to peep round, with the design, at first, of merely getting a
better view of his face, which had struck me when I entered as bearing
a close and picturesque resemblance to that of a black and sallow
tiger. Twice did I enjoy this side-view with impunity, advancing and
receding unseen; the third time my eye had scarce dawned beyond the
obscuration of the desk, when it was caught and transfixed through its
very pupil--transfixed by the "lunettes." Rosine was right; these
utensils had in them a blank and immutable terror, beyond the mobile
wrath of the wearer's own unglazed eyes.

I now found the advantage of proximity: these short-sighted "lunettes"
were useless for the inspection of a criminal under Monsieur's nose;
accordingly, he doffed them, and he and I stood on more equal terms.

I am glad I was not really much afraid of him--that, indeed, close in
his presence, I felt no terror at all; for upon his demanding cord and
gibbet to execute the sentence recently pronounced, I was able to
furnish him with a needleful of embroidering thread with such
accommodating civility as could not but allay some portion at least of
his surplus irritation. Of course I did not parade this courtesy before
public view: I merely handed the thread round the angle of the desk,
and attached it, ready noosed, to the barred back of the Professor's
chair.

"Que me voulez-vous?" said he in a growl of which the music was wholly
confined to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched; and
seemed registering to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly should
wring from him a smile.

My answer commenced uncompromisingly: "Monsieur," I said, "je veux
l'impossible, des choses inouies;" and thinking it best not to mince
matters, but to administer the "douche" with decision, in a low but
quick voice, I delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating
its urgency.

Of course, he would not hear a word of it. "He would not go; he would
not leave his present class, let all the officials of Villette send for
him. He would not put himself an inch out of his way at the bidding of
king, cabinet, and chambers together."

I knew, however, that he _must_ go; that, talk as he would, both his
duty and interest commanded an immediate and literal compliance with
the summons: I stood, therefore, waiting in silence, as if he had not
yet spoken. He asked what more I wanted.

"Only Monsieur's answer to deliver to the commissionaire."

He waved an impatient negative.

I ventured to stretch my hand to the bonnet-grec which lay in grim
repose on the window-sill. He followed this daring movement with his
eye, no doubt in mixed pity and amazement at its presumption.

"Ah!" he muttered, "if it came to that--if Miss Lucy meddled with his
bonnet-grec--she might just put it on herself, turn garcon for the
occasion, and benevolently go to the Athenee in his stead."

With great respect, I laid the bonnet on the desk, where its tassel
seemed to give me an awful nod.

"I'll write a note of apology--that will do!" said he, still bent on
evasion.

Knowing well it would _not_ do, I gently pushed the bonnet towards his
hand. Thus impelled, it slid down the polished slope of the varnished
and unbaized desk, carried before it the light steel-framed "lunettes,"
and, fearful to relate, they fell to the estrade. A score of times ere
now had I seen them fall and receive no damage--_this_ time, as Lucy
Snowe's hapless luck would have it, they so fell that each clear pebble
became a shivered and shapeless star.

Now, indeed, dismay seized me--dismay and regret. I knew the value of
these "lunettes": M. Paul's sight was peculiar, not easily fitted, and
these glasses suited him. I had heard him call them his treasures: as I
picked them up, cracked and worthless, my hand trembled. Frightened
through all my nerves I was to see the mischief I had done, but I think
I was even more sorry than afraid. For some seconds I dared not look
the bereaved Professor in the face; he was the first to speak.

"La!" said he: "me voila veuf de mes lunettes! I think Mademoiselle
Lucy will now confess that the cord and gallows are amply earned; she
trembles in anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress! traitress! You are
resolved to have me quite blind and helpless in your hands!"

I lifted my eyes: his face, instead of being irate, lowering, and
furrowed, was overflowing with the smile, coloured with the bloom I had
seen brightening it that evening at the Hotel Crecy. He was not
angry--not even grieved. For the real injury he showed himself full of
clemency; under the real provocation, patient as a saint. This event,
which seemed so untoward--which I thought had ruined at once my chance
of successful persuasion--proved my best help. Difficult of management
so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously pliant as soon
as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender.

Still gently railing at me as "une forte femme--une Anglaise
terrible--une petite casse-tout"--he declared that he dared not but
obey one who had given such an instance of her dangerous prowess; it
was absolutely like the "grand Empereur smashing the vase to inspire
dismay." So, at last, crowning himself with his bonnet-grec, and taking
his ruined "lunettes" from my hand with a clasp of kind pardon and
encouragement, he made his bow, and went off to the Athenee in
first-rate humour and spirits.

       *       *       *       *       *

After all this amiability, the reader will be sorry for my sake to hear
that I was quarrelling with M. Paul again before night; yet so it was,
and I could not help it.

It was his occasional custom--and a very laudable, acceptable custom,
too--to arrive of an evening, always a l'improviste, unannounced, burst
in on the silent hour of study, establish a sudden despotism over us
and our occupations, cause books to be put away, work-bags to be
brought out, and, drawing forth a single thick volume, or a handful of
pamphlets, substitute for the besotted "lecture pieuse," drawled by a
sleepy pupil, some tragedy made grand by grand reading, ardent by fiery
action--some drama, whereof, for my part, I rarely studied the
intrinsic merit; for M. Emanuel made it a vessel for an outpouring, and
filled it with his native verve and passion like a cup with a vital
brewage. Or else he would flash through our conventual darkness a
reflex of a brighter world, show us a glimpse of the current literature
of the day, read us passages from some enchanting tale, or the last
witty feuilleton which had awakened laughter in the saloons of Paris;
taking care always to expunge, with the severest hand, whether from
tragedy, melodrama, tale, or essay, whatever passage, phrase, or word,
could be deemed unsuited to an audience of "jeunes filles." I noticed
more than once, that where retrenchment without substitute would have
left unmeaning vacancy, or introduced weakness, he could, and did,
improvise whole paragraphs, no less vigorous than irreproachable; the
dialogue--the description--he engrafted was often far better than that
he pruned away.

Well, on the evening in question, we were sitting silent as nuns in a
"retreat," the pupils studying, the teachers working. I remember my
work; it was a slight matter of fancy, and it rather interested me; it
had a purpose; I was not doing it merely to kill time; I meant it when
finished as a gift; and the occasion of presentation being near, haste
was requisite, and my fingers were busy.

We heard the sharp bell-peal which we all knew; then the rapid step
familiar to each ear: the words "Voila Monsieur!" had scarcely broken
simultaneously from every lip, when the two-leaved door split (as split
it always did for his admission--such a slow word as "open" is
inefficient to describe his movements), and he stood in the midst of us.

There were two study tables, both long and flanked with benches; over
the centre of each hung a lamp; beneath this lamp, on either side the
table, sat a teacher; the girls were arranged to the right hand and the
left; the eldest and most studious nearest the lamps or tropics; the
idlers and little ones towards the north and south poles. Monsieur's
habit was politely to hand a chair to some teacher, generally Zelie St.
Pierre, the senior mistress; then to take her vacated seat; and thus
avail himself of the full beam of Cancer or Capricorn, which, owing to
his near sight, he needed.

As usual, Zelie rose with alacrity, smiling to the whole extent of her
mouth, and the full display of her upper and under rows of teeth--that
strange smile which passes from ear to ear, and is marked only by a
sharp thin curve, which fails to spread over the countenance, and
neither dimples the cheek nor lights the eye. I suppose Monsieur did
not see her, or he had taken a whim that he would not notice her, for
he was as capricious as women are said to be; then his "lunettes" (he
had got another pair) served him as an excuse for all sorts of little
oversights and shortcomings. Whatever might be his reason, he passed by
Zelie, came to the other side of the table, and before I could start up
to clear the way, whispered, "Ne bougez pas," and established himself
between me and Miss Fanshawe, who always would be my neighbour, and
have her elbow in my side, however often I declared to her, "Ginevra, I
wish you were at Jericho."

It was easy to say, "Ne bougez pas;" but how could I help it? I must
make him room, and I must request the pupils to recede that _I_ might
recede. It was very well for Ginevra to be gummed to me, "keeping
herself warm," as she said, on the winter evenings, and harassing my
very heart with her fidgetings and pokings, obliging me, indeed,
sometimes to put an artful pin in my girdle by way of protection
against her elbow; but I suppose M. Emanuel was not to be subjected to
the same kind of treatment, so I swept away my working materials, to
clear space for his book, and withdrew myself to make room for his
person; not, however, leaving more than a yard of interval, just what
any reasonable man would have regarded as a convenient, respectful
allowance of bench. But M. Emanuel never _was_ reasonable; flint and
tinder that he was! he struck and took fire directly.

"Vous ne voulez pas de moi pour voisin," he growled: "vous vous donnez
des airs de caste; vous me traitez en paria;" he scowled. "Soit! je
vais arranger la chose!" And he set to work.

"Levez vous toutes, Mesdemoiselles!" cried he.

The girls rose. He made them all file off to the other table. He then
placed me at one extremity of the long bench, and having duly and
carefully brought me my work-basket, silk, scissors, all my implements,
he fixed himself quite at the other end.

At this arrangement, highly absurd as it was, not a soul in the room
dared to laugh; luckless for the giggler would have been the giggle. As
for me, I took it with entire coolness. There I sat, isolated and cut
off from human intercourse; I sat and minded my work, and was quiet,
and not at all unhappy.

"Est ce assez de distance?" he demanded.

"Monsieur en est l'arbitre," said I.

"Vous savez bien que non. C'est vous qui avez cree ce vide immense: moi
je n'y ai pas mis la main."

And with this assertion he commenced the reading.

For his misfortune he had chosen a French translation of what he called
"un drame de Williams Shackspire; le faux dieu," he further announced,
"de ces sots paiens, les Anglais." How far otherwise he would have
characterized him had his temper not been upset, I scarcely need
intimate.

Of course, the translation being French, was very inefficient; nor did
I make any particular effort to conceal the contempt which some of its
forlorn lapses were calculated to excite. Not that it behoved or
beseemed me to say anything: but one can occasionally _look_ the
opinion it is forbidden to embody in words. Monsieur's lunettes being
on the alert, he gleaned up every stray look; I don't think he lost
one: the consequence was, his eyes soon discarded a screen, that their
blaze might sparkle free, and he waxed hotter at the north pole to
which he had voluntarily exiled himself, than, considering the general
temperature of the room, it would have been reasonable to become under
the vertical ray of Cancer itself.

The reading over, it appeared problematic whether he would depart with
his anger unexpressed, or whether he would give it vent. Suppression
was not much in his habits; but still, what had been done to him
definite enough to afford matter for overt reproof? I had not uttered a
sound, and could not justly be deemed amenable to reprimand or penalty
for having permitted a slightly freer action than usual to the muscles
about my eyes and mouth.

The supper, consisting of bread, and milk diluted with tepid water, was
brought in. In respectful consideration of the Professor's presence,
the rolls and glasses were allowed to stand instead of being
immediately handed round.

"Take your supper, ladies," said he, seeming to be occupied in making
marginal notes to his "Williams Shackspire." They took it. I also
accepted a roll and glass, but being now more than ever interested in
my work, I kept my seat of punishment, and wrought while I munched my
bread and sipped my beverage, the whole with easy _sang-froid_; with a
certain snugness of composure, indeed, scarcely in my habits, and
pleasantly novel to my feelings. It seemed as if the presence of a
nature so restless, chafing, thorny as that of M. Paul absorbed all
feverish and unsettling influences like a magnet, and left me none but
such as were placid and harmonious.

He rose. "Will he go away without saying another word?" Yes; he turned
to the door.

No: he _re_-turned on his steps; but only, perhaps, to take his
pencil-case, which had been left on the table.

He took it--shut the pencil in and out, broke its point against the
wood, re-cut and pocketed it, and . . . walked promptly up to me.

The girls and teachers, gathered round the other table, were talking
pretty freely: they always talked at meals; and, from the constant
habit of speaking fast and loud at such times, did not now subdue their
voices much.

M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and I
said I was making a watchguard.

He asked, "For whom?" And I answered, "For a gentleman--one of my
friends."

M. Paul stooped down and proceeded--as novel-writers say, and, as was
literally true in his case--to "hiss" into my ear some poignant words.

He said that, of all the women he knew, I was the one who could make
herself the most consummately unpleasant: I was she with whom it was
least possible to live on friendly terms. I had a "caractere
intraitable," and perverse to a miracle. How I managed it, or what
possessed me, he, for his part, did not know; but with whatever pacific
and amicable intentions a person accosted me--crac! I turned concord to
discord, good-will to enmity. He was sure, he--M. Paul--wished me well
enough; he had never done me any harm that he knew of; he might, at
least, he supposed, claim a right to be regarded as a neutral
acquaintance, guiltless of hostile sentiments: yet, how I behaved to
him! With what pungent vivacities--what an impetus of mutiny--what a
"fougue" of injustice!

Here I could not avoid opening my eyes somewhat wide, and even slipping
in a slight interjectional observation: "Vivacities? Impetus? Fougue? I
didn't know...."

"Chut! a l'instant! There! there I went--vive comme la poudre!" He was
sorry--he was very sorry: for my sake he grieved over the hapless
peculiarity. This "emportement," this "chaleur"--generous, perhaps, but
excessive--would yet, he feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity: I was
not--he believed, in his soul--wholly without good qualities: and would
I but hear reason, and be more sedate, more sober, less "en l'air,"
less "coquette," less taken by show, less prone to set an undue value
on outside excellence--to make much of the attentions of people
remarkable chiefly for so many feet of stature, "des couleurs de
poupee," "un nez plus ou moins bien fait," and an enormous amount of
fatuity--I might yet prove an useful, perhaps an exemplary character.
But, as it was--And here, the little man's voice was for a minute
choked.

I would have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing
word; but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so
odd, in all this, was the mixture of the touching and the absurd.

I thought he had nearly done: but no; he sat down that he might go on
at his ease.

"While he, M. Paul, was on these painful topics, he would dare my anger
for the sake of my good, and would venture to refer to a change he had
noticed in my dress. He was free to confess that when he first knew
me--or, rather, was in the habit of catching a passing glimpse of me
from time to time--I satisfied him on this point: the gravity, the
austere simplicity, obvious in this particular, were such as to inspire
the highest hopes for my best interests. What fatal influence had
impelled me lately to introduce flowers under the brim of my bonnet, to
wear 'des cols brodes,' and even to appear on one occasion in a
_scarlet gown_--he might indeed conjecture, but, for the present, would
not openly declare."

Again I interrupted, and this time not without an accent at once
indignant and horror-struck.

"Scarlet, Monsieur Paul? It was not scarlet! It was pink, and pale pink
too, and further subdued by black lace."

"Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, it was all
one: these were all flaunting, giddy colours; and as to the lace I
talked of, _that_ was but a 'colifichet de plus.'" And he sighed over
my degeneracy. "He could not, he was sorry to say, be so particular on
this theme as he could wish: not possessing the exact names of these
'babioles,' he might run into small verbal errors which would not fail
to lay him open to my sarcasm, and excite my unhappily sudden and
passionate disposition. He would merely say, in general terms--and in
these general terms he knew he was correct--that my costume had of late
assumed 'des facons mondaines,' which it wounded him to see."

What "facons mondaines" he discovered in my present winter merino and
plain white collar, I own it puzzled me to guess: and when I asked him,
he said it was all made with too much attention to effect--and besides,
"had I not a bow of ribbon at my neck?"

"And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would
necessarily disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?"--holding
up my bright little chainlet of silk and gold. His sole reply was a
groan--I suppose over my levity.

After sitting some minutes in silence, and watching the progress of the
chain, at which I now wrought more assiduously than ever, he inquired:
"Whether what he had just said would have the effect of making me
entirely detest him?"

I hardly remember what answer I made, or how it came about; I don't
think I spoke at all, but I know we managed to bid good-night on
friendly terms: and, even after M. Paul had reached the door, he turned
back just to explain, "that he would not be understood to speak in
entire condemnation of the scarlet dress" ("Pink! pink!" I threw in);
"that he had no intention to deny it the merit of _looking_ rather
well" (the fact was, M. Emanuel's taste in colours decidedly leaned to
the brilliant); "only he wished to counsel me, whenever, I wore it, to
do so in the same spirit as if its material were 'bure,' and its hue
'gris de poussiere.'"

"And the flowers under my bonnet, Monsieur?" I asked. "They are very
little ones--?"

"Keep them little, then," said he. "Permit them not to become
full-blown."

"And the bow, Monsieur--the bit of ribbon?"

"Va pour le ruban!" was the propitious answer.

And so we settled it.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well done, Lucy Snowe!" cried I to myself; "you have come in for a
pretty lecture--brought on yourself a 'rude savant,' and all through
your wicked fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it?
You deemed yourself a melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe
there regards you as a second Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other
day, politely turned the conversation when it ran on the wild gifts of
the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly said, 'Miss Snowe looked
uncomfortable.' Dr. John Bretton knows you only as 'quiet Lucy'--'a
creature inoffensive as a shadow;' he has said, and you have heard him
say it: 'Lucy's disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and
manner--want of colour in character and costume.' Such are your own and
your friends' impressions; and behold! there starts up a little man,
differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with being
too airy and cheery--too volatile and versatile--too flowery and
coloury. This harsh little man--this pitiless censor--gathers up all
your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of
rose-colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon,
your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for
each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in
Life's sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand
to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray."

 The twenty-sixth chapter, "A Burial," refers to the entombment of an inanimate object rather than a human being. Lucy enters a somewhat happier phase of her life now; she is often asked to the Brettons' and to the de Bassompierres'. At this time Lucy finds that her five letters from Dr. John have gone missing from her bureau drawer. She waits, and they are returned. Suspecting Madame, for she has seen the woman more than once going through her things on spying missions, she tries to accept it as the way Madame runs her school. The letters are again disturbed, and Lucy thinks that possibly Madame has taken the letters to show to M. Paul. The letters have become even more precious to Lucy lately because, although she now has enough friends to keep her from being lonely and depressed, Dr. John has transferred his affections to Polly and it is not likely he will write to Lucy again. Lucy is now upset and no longer wants her letters to be accessible. She has the letters sealed in a bottle and then buries them under the tree where the stone covering the tomb of the nun is supposed to be. She seals it up with slate and cement. The spectral nun, predictably but terrifyingly, appears to Lucy there in her l'allee defendue, but Lucy bravely tries to speak to it and touch it. The nun recedes, and Lucy tells no one what she saw. Lucy shows some of her resistance to being beholden to other people by refusing a princely sum to become a paid companion to Polly. M. de Bassompierre is kind enough, but Lucy cannot imagine being tied to Polly or giving up the little independence she has. Though Lucy is innocently taking German lessons at the de Bassompierres', M. Paul suspects that Lucy's absences are somehow sinister. He says that Madame allows Lucy her own way too often. M. Paul seems bent on keeping Lucy confined and limited however he can. Paulina has been under the impression that Dr. John will marry her cousin Ginevra. Lucy says that Polly should not worry too much about that, but that they should perform a test on Ginevra to see if it is so. The plan is then hatched for a party for Ginevra and some of Paulina's father's friends, at which Polly and Lucy will observe her. In Chapter XXVII, "The Hotel Crecy," the scene opens with a learned speech given at Villette's college. M. Paul is the eminent speaker in honor of the Prince of Labassecour's birthday. His speech is patriotic, and it brings down the house. M. Paul, usually so severe with Lucy, now asks Lucy's opinion of his speech when it is over. He is unable to hide his desire for Lucy to like his speech and to admire him for it. Lucy, who in the past admired his naivete and his frankly despotic and sometimes selfish emotions, cannot help but be surprised that he thinks she could have a proper opinion about his speech. She is overcome and cannot make a proper response beyond some stock phrases. At the dinner afterward at the Bassompierres', Lucy has the opportunity to observe both Paulina and Ginevra. Lucy and Dr. John have a chance to talk, and he remarks on Ginevra's beauty . He also says that if Lucy were a boy, he and she would have been good friends as children. This disappoints Lucy. Dr. John, ever self-absorbed, says that he is able now to remember Polly in his childhood, and he recalls her remarkable fondness for him. Lucy, again with her rivals thrown in her face, decides she has had enough of Dr. John, and she refuses to ask Polly about the old days for him. Dr. John urges her on while M. Paul overhears--once again, Lucy's character and actions are misinterpreted. M. Paul vehemently hisses in her ear that she is a coquette, and Lucy turns on him in righteous anger. M. Paul is gone, and Dr. John laughs at that scene until Lucy nearly weeps. Dr. John, callously, notices that there is a space next to Polly and goes to sit by her. The little plan that Paulina and Lucy made has come to fruition, and their answer is clear: Dr. John's affections do not lie any longer with Ginevra Fanshawe. While Lucy is waiting for Ginevra, M. Paul again approaches her. Lucy is very short with him, and M. Paul is surprised that his words hurt her. He abjectly asks for forgiveness, and Lucy finally gives it. This is perhaps the first truly social interaction that M. Paul and Lucy have ever shared. He smiles a true smile, and he is transformed in Lucy's eyes to something more attractive than he has ever been before. On the way home, Ginevra is upset that she has lost the affection of Dr. John, which means she no longer has him in her power. Lucy roundly criticizes her selfish and vain friend. In Chapter XXVIII, M. Paul is in a rage at the interruptions of his class. He has always required the absolute attention of anyone around him, and he is in such a state that he swears he will hang the next person who enters his class. The Athenee requires M. Paul to come at once for an inspection. Madame Beck and Rosine will not interrupt his class any more that morning for fear of his wrath. Lucy, who was sitting with her embroidery, is required to take him the message. She is ready for him to storm against her. Showing her innate cleverness, she has made a tiny thread noose for him to "hang" her with. In the classroom, as Lucy tries to explain the urgency of the message, Lucy accidentally breaks his eyeglasses. She is truly sorry, and M. Paul finally softens and leaves for the college. It has been M. Paul's custom to arrive unexpectedly at Madame Beck's and read to the boarders during the evenings. He arrives that night, and he uncharacteristically squeezes in to sit between Ginevra and Lucy. In a strange show of pique, M. Paul says that Lucy was trying to get away from him when she moved over to let him sit, and he marshals all the girls around so that Lucy may sit as far away from him as possible. At the girls' supper, Lucy eats, retaining her "seat of punishment," and she rather relishes the smug way this situation is continuing to bother M. Paul. Before he leaves, he comes to her and says she has a way of making herself particularly unpleasant. As always, he implies that she has, or soon will have, a weaker character than she should. He notes her slightly more feminine dress of late, which Lucy defends. She is working on making a watchguard for a gift for a gentleman, which, since he disapproves of adornment for women, should at least not be suspect. He softens slightly and asks if she has come to hate him for his hot words here and at the dinner at the de Bassompierres'. She says she does not. He relents slightly, saying she may have some simple adornments, but he cautions her not to become too vain about them.

