And he took forth and held out to me a clean silk handkerchief. Now a person who did not know M. Paul, who was unused to him and his impulses, would naturally have bungled at this offer, declined accepting the same, etcetera. But I too plainly felt this would never do; the slightest hesitation would have been fatal to the incipient treaty of peace. I rose and met the handkerchief half way, received it with decorum, wiped therewith my eyes, and, resuming my seat, and retaining the flag of truce in my hand and on my lap, took especial care during the remainder of the lesson to touch neither needle nor thimble, scissors nor muslin. Many a jealous glance did M. Paul cast at these implements. He hated them mortally, considering sewing a source of distraction from the attention due to himself. A very eloquent lesson he gave, and very kind and friendly was he to the close. Ere he had done, the clouds were dispersed and the sun shining out—tears were exchanged for smiles.

In quitting the room he paused once more at my desk.

“And your letter?” said he—this time not quite fiercely.

“I have not yet read it, monsieur.”

“Ah! it is too good to read at once. You save it, as when I was a boy I used to save a peach whose bloom was very ripe?”

The guess came so near the truth, I could not prevent a suddenly-rising warmth in my face from revealing as much.

“You promise yourself a pleasant moment,” said he, “in reading that letter. You will open it when alone—n’est ce pas? Ah! a smile answers. Well, well! one should not be too harsh; ‘la jeunesse n’a qu’un temps.’ ”

“Monsieur! monsieur!” I cried, or rather whispered, after him, as he turned to go, “do not leave me under a mistake. This is merely a friend’s letter. Without reading it I can vouch for that.”

“Je conçois, je conçois; on sait ce que c’est qu’un ami. Bon jour, mademoiselle!”

“But, monsieur, here is your handkerchief.”

“Keep it, keep it, till the letter is read, then bring it me. I shall read the billet’s tenor in your eyes.”

When he was gone, the pupils having already poured out of the schoolroom into the berceau, and thence into the garden and court, to take their customary recreation before the five-o’clock dinner, I stood a moment thinking, and absently twisting the handkerchief round my arm. For some reason—gladdened, I think, by a sudden return of the golden glimmer of childhood, roused by an unwonted renewal of its buoyancy, made merry by the liberty of the closing hour, and, above all, solaced at heart by the joyous consciousness of that treasure in the case, box, drawer upstairs—I fell to playing with the handkerchief as if it were a ball, casting it into the air, and catching it as it fell. The game was stopped by another hand than mine—a hand emerging from a paletot sleeve and stretched over my shoulder. It caught the extemporized plaything, and bore it away with these sullen words,—

“Je vois bien que vous vous moquez de moi et de mes effets.”

Really that little man was dreadful—a mere sprite of caprice and ubiquity. One never knew either his whim or his whereabout.


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