Villette

admitted to visit him. How tremblingly I approached the window and glanced into your Eden – an Eden for me, though a desert for you! – how I feared to behold vacancy, or the dragon aforesaid! How my heart palpitated with delight when, through apertures in the envious boughs, I at once caught the gleam of your graceful straw-hat, and the waving of your gray dress – dress that I should recognize amongst a thousand. But why, my angel, will you not look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray of those adorable eyes! – how a single glance would have revived me! I write this in fiery haste; while the physician examines Gustave, I snatch an opportunity to enclose it in a small casket, together with a bouquet of flowers, the sweetest that blow – yet less sweet than thee, my Peri – my all-charming! Ever thine – thou well knowest whom!«
    »I wish I did know whom,« was my comment; and the wish bore even closer reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than to the writer thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiancé of one of the engaged pupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done or intended – only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, the majority indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college. But, »la robe grise, le chapeau de paille,« here surely was a clue – a very confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden head-screen, common to a score besides myself. The gray dress hardly gave more definite indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a gray dress just now; another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had gray dresses purchased of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a sort of every-day wear which happened at that time to be in vogue.
    Meanwhile, as I pondered, I knew I must go in. Lights, moving in the dormitory, announced that prayers were over, and the pupils going to bed. Another half hour and all doors would be locked – all lights extinguished. The front door yet stood open, to admit into the heated house the coolness of the summer night; from the portresse's cabinet close by shone a lamp, showing the long vestibule with the two-leaved drawing-room doors on one side, the great street-door closing the vista.
    All at once, quick rang the bell – quick, but not loud – a cautious tinkle – a sort of warning, metal whisper. Rosine darted from her cabinet and ran to open. The person she admitted stood with her two minutes in parley: there seemed a demur, a delay. Rosine came to the garden door, lamp in hand; she stood on the steps, lifting her lamp, looking round vaguely.
    »Quel conte!« she cried with a coquettish laugh. »Personne n'y a été.«
    »Let me pass,« pleaded a voice I knew: »I ask but five minutes;« and a familiar shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thought it), issued from the house, and strode down amongst the beds and walks. It was sacrilege – the intrusion of a man into that spot, at that hour; but he knew himself privileged, and perhaps he trusted to the friendly night. He wandered down the alleys, looking on this side and on that – he was lost in the shrubs, trampling flowers and breaking branches in his search – he penetrated at last the ›forbidden walk.‹ There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose.
    »Dr. John! it is found.«
    He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I held it in my hand.
    »Do not betray her,« he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a dragon.
    »Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do not know,« was my answer. »Read the note, and you will see how little it reveals.«
    »Perhaps you have read it,« I thought to myself; and yet I could not believe he wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I was fool enough to think there would be a degree of hardship in his calling me such names. His own look vindicated him; he grew hot, and coloured as he read.
    »This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating,« were the words that fell from him. I thought it
was
cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. No matter whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, must be more to blame.
    »What shall you do about it?« he inquired of me. »Shall you tell Madame Beck what you have found, and cause a stir – an esclandre?«
    I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believe there would be either stir or esclandre: madame was much too prudent to make a noise about an affair of