rom you,
who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think
me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and--"

Adele here came running up again.

"Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and
wishes to see you."

"Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon
them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her
hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams,
hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with
the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. Next morning I had
the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor
etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then
thought I had done with the whole crew. But unluckily the Varens, six
months before, had given me this filette Adele, who, she affirmed, was my
daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim
paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she.
Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child,
and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no
natural claim on Adele's part to be supported by me, nor do I now
acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite
destitute, I e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris,
and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an
English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you
know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl, you
will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee: you will be
coming to me some day with notice that you have found another place--that
you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.--Eh?"

"No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I
have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense,
parentless--forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir--I shall
cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt
pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a
lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"

"Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and
you too: it darkens."

But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilot--ran a race
with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When w