ollowed 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