imes reproached
herself for not generously holding out her hand and saying, "Let us at
least be friends."

Pierquin continued his suit with an obstinacy which is the unreflecting
patience of fools. He judged Marguerite by the ordinary rules of the
multitude when judging of women. He believed that the words marriage,
freedom, fortune, which he had put into her mind, would geminate and
flower into wishes by which he could profit; he imagined that her
coldness was mere dissimulation. But surround her as he would with
gallant attentions, he could not hide the despotic ways of a man
accustomed to manage the private affairs of many families with a high
hand. He discoursed to her in those platitudes of consolation common to
his profession, which crawl like snails over the suffering mind, leaving
behind them a trail of barren words which profane its sanctity. His
tenderness was mere wheedling. He dropped his feigned melancholy at the
door when he put on his overshoes, or took his umbrella. He used the
tone his long intimacy authorized as an instrument to work himself still
further into the bosom of the family, and bring Marguerite to a marriage
which the whole town was beginning to foresee. The true, devoted,
respectful love formed a striking contrast to its selfish, calculating
semblance. Each man's conduct was homogenous: one feigned a passion and
seized every advantage to gain the prize; the other hid his love and
trembled lest he should betray his devotion.

Some time after the death of her mother, and, as it happened, on the
same day, Marguerite was enabled to compare the only two men of whom she
had any opportunity of judging; for the social solitude to which she
was condemned kept her from seeing life and gave no access to those who
might think of her in marriage. One day after breakfast, a fine morning
in April, Emmanuel called at the house just as Monsieur Claes was going
out. The aspect of his own house was so unendurable to Balthazar that he
spent part of every day in walking about the ramparts. Emmanuel made a
motion as if to follow him, then he hesitated, seemed to gather up his
courage, looked at Marguerite and remained. The young girl felt sure
that he wished to speak with her, and asked him to go into the garden;
then she sent Felicie to Martha, who was sewing in the antechamber on
the upper floor, and seated herself on a garden-seat in full view of her
sister and the old duenna.

"Monsieur Claes is as much a