s practice to do the marketing
for the house. As a matter of fact the necessity of having to pay, to
actually give money to people, infuriated the pious Therese. But the
matter of this morning's speech was so extraordinary that it might have
been the prolongation of a nightmare: a man in bonds having to listen to
weird and unaccountable speeches against which, he doesn't know why, his
very soul revolts.

In sober truth my soul remained in revolt though I was convinced that I
was no longer dreaming. I watched Therese coming away from the window
with that helpless dread a man bound hand and foot may be excused to
feel. For in such a situation even the absurd may appear ominous. She
came up close to the bed and folding her hands meekly in front of her
turned her eyes up to the ceiling.

"If I had been her daughter she couldn't have spoken more softly to me,"
she said sentimentally.

I made a great effort to speak.

"Mademoiselle Therese, you are raving."

"She addressed me as Mademoiselle, too, so nicely. I was struck with
veneration for her white hair but her face, believe me, my dear young
Monsieur, has not so many wrinkles as mine."

She compressed her lips with an angry glance at me as if I could help her
wrinkles, then she sighed.

"God sends wrinkles, but what is our face?" she digressed in a tone of
great humility. "We shall have glorious faces in Paradise. But meantime
God has permitted me to preserve a smooth heart."

"Are you going to keep on like this much longer?" I fairly shouted at
her. "What are you talking about?"

"I am talking about the sweet old lady who came in a carriage. Not a
fiacre. I can tell a fiacre. In a little carriage shut in with glass
all in front. I suppose she is very rich. The carriage was very shiny
outside and all beautiful grey stuff inside. I opened the door to her
myself. She got out slowly like a queen. I was struck all of a heap.
Such a shiny beautiful little carriage. There were blue silk tassels
inside, beautiful silk tassels."

Obviously Therese had been very much impressed by a brougham, though she
didn't know the name for it. Of all the town she knew nothing but the
streets which led to a neighbouring church frequented only by the poorer
classes and the humble quarter around, where she did her marketing.
Besides, she was accustomed to glide along the walls with her eyes cast
down; for her natural boldness would never show itself through that
nun