c! 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