Villette

godmother and M. de Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called ›a two-handed crack:‹ what the Count would have interpreted as a tête-à-tête. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me how I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to me – a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both forms – studied both faces.
    Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst the gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by glimpses, a severe, dark professoral outline, hovering aloof in an inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the gentlemen present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies, excepting myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see me, and naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr. Bretton also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all, there would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with holding back, he puckered up his eye-brows, protruded his lip, and looked so ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle. M. Joseph Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at this very moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-touch succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones the instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!
    »Lucy,« began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, »Miss Fanshawe is certainly a fine girl.«
    Of course I assented.
    »Is there,« he pursued, »another in the room as lovely?«
    »I think there is not another as handsome.«
    »I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in taste, I think; or at least in judgment.«
    »Do we?« I said, somewhat doubtfully.
    »I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl – my mother's god-son instead of her god-daughter – we should have been good friends: our opinions would have melted into each other.«
    He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing half-ironic, shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same, but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station, would your manner to her, your value for her have been quite what they actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously infer blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then mine was a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament – it fell if a cloud crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity, I should stand more at fault than you.
    Trying then to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired calmly, –
    »On what points are we so closely in accordance?«
    »We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit for the possession; yet I have it.«
    »But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet estimate them differently?«
    »Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the room? – my mother, for instance; or the lions, yonder. Messieurs A–– and Z––; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?«
    »You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs A–– and Z––.«
    »And the other?«
    »I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady – pale, certainly, just now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement.«
    »You don't remember her as a child?«
    »I wonder, sometimes, whether you do?«
    »I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances, persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may, under certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's mind, revive.«
    »That is possible enough.«
    »Yet,« he continued, »the