pringy, step. His hair, which he wears rather long, is
always carefully parted in the middle, and he is always freshly shaven.
His habit of filling the pockets of his frock-coat with bundles of notes
has made that garment swell out at the top into the shape of a basket. He
puts on a pair of spectacles mounted in very thin gold, and reads
determinedly, very few books it is true, but they are all bound in
vellum, and that fixes their date. In his way of turning the leaves there
is something sacerdotal. He seems popular with the servants. Some of the
keepers worship him. He has very good manners toward every one. Me he
avoids. Still I meet him, sometimes in the cloakroom, oftener in the Rue
Richelieu on his way to the Seine. He stops, and so do I, near the
Fontaine Moliere, to buy chestnuts. We have this taste in common. He buys
two sous' worth, I buy one; thus the distinctions of rank are preserved.
If he arrives after me, I allow him the first turn to be served; if he is
before me, I await my turn with a patience which betokens respect. Yet he
never seems to notice it. Once or twice, certainly, I fancied I caught a
smile at the corners of his mouth, and a sly twinkle in the corners of
his eyes; but these old scholars smile so austerely.

He must have guessed that I wish to meet him. For I can not deny it. I am
looking out for an opportunity to repair my clumsy mistake and show
myself in a less unfavorable light than I did at that ill-starred visit.
And she is the reason why I haunt his path!

Ever since M. Mouillard threatened me with Mademoiselle Berthe Lorinet,
the graceful outlines of Mademoiselle Jeanne have haunted me with a
persistence to which I have no objection.

It is not because I love her. It does not go as far as that. I am leaving
her and leaving Paris forever in a few months. No; the height of my
desire is to see her again--in the street, at the theatre, no matter
where--to show her by my behavior and, if possible, by my words that I am
sorry for the past, and implore her forgiveness. Then there will no
longer be a gulf betwixt her and me, I shall be able to meet her without
confusion, to invoke her image to put to flight that of Mademoiselle
Lorinet without the vision of those disdainful lips to dash me. She will
be for me at once the type of Parisian grace and of filial affection. I
will carry off her image to the country like the remembered perfume of
some rare flower; and if ever I sing 'Hymen Hymnaee