“How did you get on with Marie Broc?” he asked, after some minutes’ silence.
“Monsieur, I did my best; but it was terrible to be alone with her!”
“You have, then, a weak heart. You lack courage, and, perhaps, charity. Yours are not the qualities which might constitute a Sister of Mercy.”
(He was a religious little man in his way. The self-denying and self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of his soul.)
“I don’t know, indeed. I took as good care of her as I could; but when her aunt came to fetch her away, it was a great relief.”
“Ah! you are an egotist. There are women who have nursed hospitals full of similar unfortunates. You could not do that?”
“Could monsieur do it himself?”
“Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass our coarse, fallible, self-indulgent sex in the power to perform such duties.”
“I washed her, I kept her clean, I fed her, I tried to amuse her; but she made mouths at me instead of speaking.”
“You think you did great things?”
“No; but as great as I could do.”
“Then limited are your powers, for in tending one idiot you fell sick.”
“Not with that, monsieur. I had a nervous fever. My mind was ill.”
“Vraiment! Vous valez peu de chose. You are not cast in an heroic mould; your courage will not avail to sustain you in solitude; it merely gives you the temerity to gaze with sang-froid at pictures of Cleopatra.”
It would have been easy to show anger at the teasing, hostile tone of the little man. I had never been angry with him yet, however, and had no present disposition to begin.
“Cleopatra!” I repeated quietly. “Monsieur too has been looking at Cleopatra. What does he think of her?”
“Cela ne vaut rien,” he responded. “Une femme superbe—une taille d’impératrice, des formes de Junon, mais une personne dont je ne voudrais ni pour femme, ni pour fille, ni pour sœur. Aussi vous ne jeterez plus un seul coup d’œil de sa côté.”
“But I have looked at her a great many times while monsieur has been talking. I can see her quite well from this corner.”
“Turn to the wall and study your four pictures of a woman’s life.”
“Excuse me, M. Paul—they are too hideous; but if you admire them, allow me to vacate my seat and leave you to their contemplation.”
“Mademoiselle,” he said, grimacing a half-smile, or what he intended for a smile, though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation, “you nurslings of Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen walk calmly amidst red-hot ploughshares, and escape burning. I believe, if some of you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar’s hottest furnace, you would issue forth untraversed by the smell of fire.”