Well, on the evening in question, we were sitting silent as nuns in a “retreat,” the pupils studying, the teachers working. I remember my work. It was a slight matter of fancy, and it rather interested me. It had a purpose; I was not doing it merely to kill time. I meant it, when finished, as a gift; and the occasion of presentation being near, haste was requisite, and my fingers were busy.

We heard the sharp bell-peal which we all knew; then the rapid step familiar to each ear. The words “Voilà monsieur!” had scarcely broken simultaneously from every lip, when the two-leaved door split (as split it always did for his admission; such a slow word as “open” is inefficient to describe his movements), and he stood in the midst of us.

There were two study tables, both long and flanked with benches; over the centre of each hung a lamp. Beneath this lamp, on either side the table, sat a teacher. The girls were arranged to the right hand and the left, the eldest and most studious nearest the lamps or tropics, the idlers and little ones towards the north and south poles. Monsieur’s habit was politely to hand a chair to some teacher, generally Zélie St. Pierre, the senior mistress; then to take her vacated seat, and thus avail himself of the full beam of Cancer or Capricorn, which, owing to his near sight, he needed.

As usual, Zélie rose with alacrity, smiling to the whole extent of her mouth, and the full display of her upper and under rows of teeth—that strange smile which passes from ear to ear, and is marked only by a sharp thin curve, which fails to spread over the countenance, and neither dimples the cheek nor lights the eye. I suppose monsieur did not see her, or he had taken a whim that he would not notice her, for he was as capricious as women are said to be; then his lunettes (he had got another pair) served him as an excuse for all sorts of little oversights and shortcomings. Whatever might be his reason, he passed by Zélie, came to the other side of the table, and before I could start up to clear the way, whispered, “Ne bougez pas,” and established himself between me and Miss Fanshawe, who always would be my neighbour, and have her elbow in my side, however often I declared to her,—

“Ginevra. I wish you were at Jericho.”

It was easy to say, “Ne bougez pas,” but how could I help it? I must make him room, and I must request the pupils to recede that I might recede. It was very well for Ginevra to be gummed to me, “keeping herself warm,” as she said, on the winter evenings, and harassing my very heart with her fidgetings and pokings, obliging me, indeed, sometimes to put an artful pin in my girdle, by way of protection against her elbow; but I suppose M. Emanuel was not to be subjected to the same kind of treatment, so I swept away my working materials, to clear space for his book, and withdrew myself, to make room for his person, not, however, leaving more than a yard of interval—just what any reasonable man would have regarded as a convenient, respectful allowance of bench. But M. Emanuel never was reasonable; flint and tinder that he was, he struck and took fire directly.

“Vous ne voulez pas de moi pour voisin,” he growled. “Vous vous donnez des airs de caste; vous me traitez en paria,” he scowled. “Soit! je vais arranger la ’chose!” And he set to work.

“Levez vous toutes, mesdemoiselles!” cried he.

The girls rose. He made them all file off to the other table. He then placed me at one extremity of the long bench, and having duly and carefully brought me my work-basket, silk, scissors, all my implements, he fixed himself quite at the other end.

At this arrangement, highly absurd as it was, not a soul in the room dared to laugh; luckless for the giggler would have been the giggle. As for me, I took it with entire coolness. There I sat, isolated and cut off from human intercourse. I sat and minded my work, and was quiet, and not at all unhappy.

“Est ce assez de distance?” he demanded.

“Monsieur en est l’arbitre,” said I.