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