M. Emanuel advanced to still the clamour and repair the disarrangement. Having gathered up the books, he captured Sylvie, and stowed her away under his paletôt, where she nestled as quiet as a mouse, her head just peeping forth. She was very tiny, and had the prettiest little innocent face, the silkiest long ears, the finest dark eyes in the world. I never saw her, but I thought of Paulina de Bassompierre: forgive the association, reader, it would occur.
M. Paul petted and patted her; the endearments she received were not to be wondered at; she invited affection by her beauty and her vivacious life.
While caressing the spaniel, his eye roved over the papers and books just replaced; it settled on the religious tract. His lips moved; he half checked the impulse to speak. What! had he promised never to address me more? If so, his better nature pronounced the vow "more honoured in the breach than in the observance," for with a second effort, he spoke.--"You have not yet read the brochure, I presume? It is not sufficiently inviting?"
I replied that I had read it.
He waited, as if wishing me to give an opinion upon it unasked. Unasked, however, I was in no mood to do or say anything. If any concessions were to be made--if any advances were demanded--that was the affair of the very docile pupil of Père Silas, not mine. His eye settled upon me gently: there was mildness at the moment in its blue ray--there was solicitude--a shade of pathos; there were meanings composite and contrasted--reproach melting into remorse. At the moment probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my desk, and begin soberly to mend them.
I knew that action would give a turn to his mood. He never liked to see me mend pens; my knife was always dull-edged--my hand, too, was unskilful; I hacked and chipped. On this occasion I cut my own finger --half on purpose. I wanted to restore him to his natural state, to set him at his ease, to get him to chide.
"Maladroit!" he cried at last, "she will make mincemeat of her hands."
He put Sylvie down, making her lie quiet beside his bonnet-grec, and, depriving me of the pens and penknife, proceeded to slice, nib, and point with the accuracy and celerity of a machine.
"Did I like the little book?" he now inquired.
Suppressing a yawn, I said I hardly knew.