one of my
pupils, one of my favorite graduates--my friend, Fabien Mouillard. And I
won't be refused--no, damme, I won't!"

He brought down his fist upon the table with a tremendous blow which
made the glasses ring and the decanters stagger.

"Coming!" cried a waiter from below, thinking he was summoned.

"All right, my good fellow!" shouted M. Flamaran, leaning over the
railings. "Don't trouble. I don't want anything."

He turned again toward me, still filled with emotion, but somewhat
calmer than he had been.

"Now," said he, "let us talk, and do you tell me all."

And we began a long and altogether delightful talk.

A more genuine, a finer fellow never breathed than this professor let
loose from school and giving his heart a holiday--a simple, tender
heart, preserved beneath the science of the law like a grape in sawdust.
Now he would smile as I sang Jeanne's praises; now he would sit and
listen to my objections with a truculent air, tightening his lips till
they broke forth in vehement denial. "What! You dare to say! Young man,
what are you afraid of?" His overflowing kindness discharged itself in
the sincerest and most solemn asseverations.

We had left Juan Fernandez far behind us; we were both far away in that
Utopia where mind penetrates mind, heart understands heart. We heard
neither the squeaking of a swing beneath us, nor the shouts of laughter
along the promenades, nor the sound of a band tuning up in a neighboring
pavilion. Our eyes, raised to heaven, failed to see the night descending
upon us, vast and silent, piercing the foliage with its first stars. Now
and again a warm breath passed over us, blown from the woods; I tasted
its strangely sweet perfume; I saw in glimpses the flying vision of a
huge dark tulip, striped with gold, unfolding its petals on the moist
bank of a dyke, and I asked myself whether a mysterious flower had
really opened in the night, or whether it was but a new feeling, slowly
budding, unfolding, blossoming within my heart.

CHAPTER XVII. PLEASURES OF EAVESDROPPING

July 22d.

At two o'clock to-day I went to see Sylvestre, to tell him all the great
events of yesterday. We sat down on the old covered sofa in the shadow
of the movable curtain which divides the studio, as it were, into two
rooms, among the lay figures, busts, varnish-bottles, and paint-boxes.
Lampron likes this chiaroscuro. It rests his eyes.

Some one knocked at the door.

"S