A WEEK is gone; LE JOUR DES NOCES arrived; the marriage was solemnized
at St. Jacques; Mdlle. Zoraide became Madame Pelet, NEE Reuter; and, in
about an hour after this transformation, “the happy pair,” as newspapers
phrase it, were on their way to Paris; where, according to previous
arrangement, the honeymoon was to be spent. The next day I quitted the
pensionnat. Myself and my chattels (some books and clothes) were soon
transferred to a modest lodging I had hired in a street not far off. In
half an hour my clothes were arranged in a commode, my books on a shelf,
and the “flitting” was effected. I should not have been unhappy that day
had not one pang tortured me--a longing to go to the Rue Notre Dame
aux Neiges, resisted, yet irritated by an inward resolve to avoid
that street till such time as the mist of doubt should clear from my
prospects.
It was a sweet September evening--very mild, very still; I had nothing
to do; at that hour I knew Frances would be equally released from
occupation; I thought she might possibly be wishing for her master, I
knew I wished for my pupil. Imagination began with her low whispers,
infusing into my soul the soft tale of pleasures that might be.
“You will find her reading or writing,” said she; “you can take your
seat at her side; you need not startle her peace by undue excitement;
you need not embarrass her manner by unusual action or language. Be as
you always are; look over what she has written; listen while she reads;
chide her, or quietly approve; you know the effect of either system; you
know her smile when pleased, you know the play of her looks when roused;
you have the secret of awakening what expression you will, and you can
choose amongst that pleasant variety. With you she will sit silent as
long as it suits you to talk alone; you can hold her under a potent
spell: intelligent as she is, eloquent as she can be, you can seal her
lips, and veil her bright countenance with diffidence; yet, you know,
she is not all monotonous mildness; you have seen, with a sort of
strange pleasure, revolt, scorn, austerity, bitterness, lay energetic
claim to a place in her feelings and physiognomy; you know that few
could rule her as you do; you know she might break, but never bend under
the hand of Tyranny and Injustice, but Reason and Affection can guide
her by a sign. Try their influence now. Go--they are not passions; you
may handle them safely.”
“I will NOT go was my answer to the sweet temptress. A man is master
of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. Could I seek Frances
to-night, could I sit with her alone in a quiet room, and address her
only in the language of Reason and Affection?”
“No,” was the brief, fervent reply of that Love which had conquered and
now controlled me.
Time seemed to stagnate; the sun would not go down; my watch ticked, but
I thought the hands were paralyzed.
“What a hot evening!” I cried, throwing open the lattice; for, indeed, I
had seldom felt so feverish. Hearing a step ascending the common stair,
I wondered whether the “locataire,” now mounting to his apartments, were
as unsettled in mind and condition as I was, or whether he lived in the
calm of certain resources, and in the freedom of unfettered feelings.
What! was he coming in person to solve the problem hardly proposed in
inaudible thought? He had actually knocked at the door--at MY door; a
smart, prompt rap; and, almost before I could invite him in, he was over
the threshold, and had closed the door behind him.
“And how are you?” asked an indifferent, quiet voice, in the English
language; while my visitor, without any sort of bustle or introduction,
put his hat on the table, and his gloves into his hat, and drawing
the only armchair the room afforded a little forward, seated himself
tranquilly therein.
“Can’t you speak?” he inquired in a few moments, in a tone whose
nonchalance seemed to intimate that it was much the same thing whether
I answered or not. The fact is, I found it desirable to have recourse to
my good friends “les besicles;” not exactly to ascertain the identity of
my visitor--for I already knew him, confound his impudence! but to see
how he looked--to get a clear notion of his mien and countenance.
I wiped the glasses very deliberately, and put them on quite as
deliberately; adjusting them so as not to hurt the bridge of my nose
or get entangled in my short tufts of dun hair. I was sitting in the
window-seat, with my back to the light, and I had him VIS-A-VIS; a
position he would much rather have had reversed; for, at any time, he
preferred scrutinizing to being scrutinized. Yes, it was HE, and no
mistake, with his six feet of length arranged in a sitting attitude;
with his dark travelling surtout with its velvet collar, his gray
pantaloons, his black stock, and his face, the most original one Nature
ever modelled, yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could
be termed marked or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no
use in attempting to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry
to address him, I sat and stared at my ease.
“Oh, that’s your game--is it?” said he at last. “Well, we’ll see which
is soonest tired.” And he slowly drew out a fine cigar-case, picked one
to his taste, lit it, took a book from the shelf convenient to his hand,
then leaning back, proceeded to smoke and read as tranquilly as if he
had been in his own room, in Grove-street, X---shire, England. I knew
he was capable of continuing in that attitude till midnight, if he
conceived the whim, so I rose, and taking the book from his hand, I
said,--
“You did not ask for it, and you shall not have it.”
“It is silly and dull,” he observed, “so I have not lost much;” then the
spell being broken, he went on: “I thought you lived at Pelet’s; I went
there this afternoon expecting to be starved to death by sitting in
a boarding-school drawing-room, and they told me you were gone, had
departed this morning; you had left your address behind you though,
which I wondered at; it was a more practical and sensible precaution
than I should have imagined you capable of. Why did you leave?”
“Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown
assigned to me as my wife.”
“Oh, indeed!” replied Hunsden with a short laugh; “so you’ve lost both
your wife and your place?”
“Precisely so.”
I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its
narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended
the state of matters--had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A
curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally
certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour,
lounging on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he
would have hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case
have been the extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have
come near me more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on
its surface; but the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless
solitude of my room relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what
softening change had taken place both in his voice and look ere he spoke
again.
“You have got another place?”
“No.”
“You are in the way of getting one?”
“No.”
“That is bad; have you applied to Brown?”
“No, indeed.”
“You had better; he often has it in his power to give useful information
in such matters.”
“He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the
humour to bother him again.”
“Oh, if you’re bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only
commission me. I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word.”
“I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me
an important service when I was at X----; got me out of a den where I
was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I decline
positively adding another item to the account.”
“If the wind sits that way, I’m satisfied. I thought my unexampled
generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be
duly appreciated some day: ‘Cast your bread on the waters, and it
shall be found after many days,’ say the Scriptures. Yes, that’s right,
lad--make much of me--I’m a nonpareil: there’s nothing like me in the
common herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for
a few moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what
is more, you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that
offers it.”
“Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of
something else. What news from X----?”
“I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle
before we get to X----. Is this Miss Zenobie” (Zoraide, interposed
I)--“well, Zoraide--is she really married to Pelet?”
“I tell you yes--and if you don’t believe me, go and ask the cure of St.
Jacques.”
“And your heart is broken?”
“I am not aware that it is; it feels all right--beats as usual.”
“Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must
be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering
under it.”
“Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the
circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster?
The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their
look-out--not mine.”
“He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!”
“Who said so?”
“Brown.”
“I’ll tell you what, Hunsden--Brown is an old gossip.”
“He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than
fact--if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraide--why, O
youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her
becoming Madame Pelet?”
“Because--” I felt my face grow a little hot; “because--in short, Mr.
Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged my hands
deep in my breeches pocket.
Hunsden triumphed: his eyes--his laugh announced victory.
“What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?”
“At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I’ll not bore you; I see how
it is: Zoraide has jilted you--married some one richer, as any sensible
woman would have done if she had had the chance.”
I made no reply--I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter into
an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a
false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence,
instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render
him doubtful about it; he went on:--
“I suppose the affair has been conducted as such affairs always
are amongst rational people: you offered her your youth and your
talents--such as they are--in exchange for her position and money: I
don’t suppose you took appearance, or what is called LOVE, into the
account--for I understand she is older than you, and Brown says, rather
sensible-looking than beautiful. She, having then no chance of making
a better bargain, was at first inclined to come to terms with you, but
Pelet--the head of a flourishing school--stepped in with a higher bid;
she accepted, and he has got her: a correct transaction--perfectly
so--business-like and legitimate. And now we’ll talk of something else.”
“Do,” said I, very glad to dismiss the topic, and especially glad to
have baffled the sagacity of my cross-questioner--if, indeed, I had
baffled it; for though his words now led away from the dangerous point,
his eyes, keen and watchful, seemed still preoccupied with the former
idea.
“You want to hear news from X----? And what interest can you have in
X----? You left no friends there, for you made none. Nobody ever asks
after you--neither man nor woman; and if I mention your name in company,
the men look as if I had spoken of Prester John; and the women sneer
covertly. Our X---- belles must have disliked you. How did you excite
their displeasure?”
“I don’t know. I seldom spoke to them--they were nothing to me. I
considered them only as something to be glanced at from a distance;
their dresses and faces were often pleasing enough to the eye: but
I could not understand their conversation, nor even read their
countenances. When I caught snatches of what they said, I could never
make much of it; and the play of their lips and eyes did not help me at
all.”
“That was your fault, not theirs. There are sensible, as well as
handsome women in X----; women it is worth any man’s while to talk to,
and with whom I can talk with pleasure: but you had and have no pleasant
address; there is nothing in you to induce a woman to be affable. I have
remarked you sitting near the door in a room full of company, bent on
hearing, not on speaking; on observing, not on entertaining; looking
frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about
the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end. Is that the way, do
you think, ever to communicate pleasure or excite interest? No; and if
you are generally unpopular, it is because you deserve to be so.”
“Content!” I ejaculated.
“No, you are not content; you see beauty always turning its back on
you; you are mortified and then you sneer. I verily believe all that is
desirable on earth--wealth, reputation, love--will for ever to you be
the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you’ll look up at them; they will
tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you
have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you’ll go away calling them
sour.”
Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances, they
drew no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had been varied
since I left X----, but Hunsden could not know this; he had seen me only
in the character of Mr. Crimsworth’s clerk--a dependant amongst wealthy
strangers, meeting disdain with a hard front, conscious of an unsocial
and unattractive exterior, refusing to sue for notice which I was sure
would be withheld, declining to evince an admiration which I knew would
be scorned as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth and
loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied them at
leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of truth under
the embroidery of appearance; nor could he, keen-sighted as he
was, penetrate into my heart, search my brain, and read my peculiar
sympathies and antipathies; he had not known me long enough, or well
enough, to perceive how low my feelings would ebb under some influences,
powerful over most minds; how high, how fast they would flow under
other influences, that perhaps acted with the more intense force on me,
because they acted on me alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant
the history of my communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to him
and to all others was the tale of her strange infatuation; her
blandishments, her wiles had been seen but by me, and to me only were
they known; but they had changed me, for they had proved that I COULD
impress. A sweeter secret nestled deeper in my heart; one full of
tenderness and as full of strength: it took the sting out of Hunsden’s
sarcasm; it kept me unbent by shame, and unstirred by wrath. But of all
this I could say nothing--nothing decisive at least; uncertainty sealed
my lips, and during the interval of silence by which alone I replied to
Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the present wholly misjudged
by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had been rather too hard
upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of his upbraidings; so to
re-assure me he said, doubtless I should mend some day; I was only at
the beginning of life yet; and since happily I was not quite without
sense, every false step I made would be a good lesson.
Just then I turned my face a little to the light; the approach of
twilight, and my position in the window-seat, had, for the last ten
minutes, prevented him from studying my countenance; as I moved,
however, he caught an expression which he thus interpreted:--
“Confound it! How doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he
was fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as
to say, ‘Let the world wag as it will, I’ve the philosopher’s stone
in my waist-coat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I’m
independent of both Fate and Fortune.’”
“Hunsden--you spoke of grapes; I was thinking of a fruit I like better
than your X---- hot-house grapes--an unique fruit, growing wild, which I
have marked as my own, and hope one day to gather and taste. It is of no
use your offering me the draught of bitterness, or threatening me with
death by thirst: I have the anticipation of sweetness on my palate; the
hope of freshness on my lips; I can reject the unsavoury, and endure the
exhausting.”
“For how long?”
“Till the next opportunity for effort; and as the prize of success will
be a treasure after my own heart, I’ll bring a bull’s strength to the
struggle.”
“Bad luck crushes bulls as easily as bullaces; and, I believe, the fury
dogs you: you were born with a wooden spoon in your mouth, depend on
it.”
“I believe you; and I mean to make my wooden spoon do the work of some
people’s silver ladles: grasped firmly, and handled nimbly, even a
wooden spoon will shovel up broth.”
Hunsden rose: “I see,” said he; “I suppose you’re one of those who
develop best unwatched, and act best unaided--work your own way. Now,
I’ll go.” And, without another word, he was going; at the door he
turned:--
“Crimsworth Hall is sold,” said he.
“Sold!” was my echo.
“Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months ago?”
“What! Edward Crimsworth?”
“Precisely; and his wife went home to her father’s; when affairs went
awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I told you he
would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him--”
“Ay, as to him--what is become of him?”
“Nothing extraordinary--don’t be alarmed; he put himself under the
protection of the court, compounded with his creditors--tenpence in
the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back his wife, and is
flourishing like a green bay-tree.”
“And Crimsworth Hall--was the furniture sold too?”
“Everything--from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin.”
“And the contents of the oak dining-room--were they sold?”
“Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held more
sacred than those of any other?”
“And the pictures?”
“What pictures? Crimsworth had no special collection that I know of--he
did not profess to be an amateur.”
“There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you cannot
have forgotten them, Mr. Hunsden; you once noticed that of the lady--”
“Oh, I know! the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like
drapery.--Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the other
things. If you had been rich, you might have bought it, for I remember
you said it represented your mother: you see what it is to be without a
sou.”
I did. “But surely,” I thought to myself, “I shall not always be so
poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet.--Who purchased it? do
you know?” I asked.
“How is it likely? I never inquired who purchased anything; there spoke
the unpractical man--to imagine all the world is interested in what
interests himself! Now, good night--I’m off for Germany to-morrow
morning; I shall be back here in six weeks, and possibly I may call
and see you again; I wonder whether you’ll be still out of place!”
he laughed, as mockingly, as heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so
laughing, vanished.
Some people, however indifferent they may become after a considerable
space of absence, always contrive to leave a pleasant impression just
at parting; not so Hunsden, a conference with him affected one like a
draught of Peruvian bark; it seemed a concentration of the specially
harsh, stringent, bitter; whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely
knew.
A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the night
after this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but hardly had my
slumber become sleep, when I was roused from it by hearing a noise in
my sitting room, to which my bed-room adjoined--a step, and a shoving of
furniture; the movement lasted barely two minutes; with the closing
of the door it ceased. I listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I
had dreamt it; perhaps a locataire had made a mistake, and entered my
apartment instead of his own. It was yet but five o’clock; neither I nor
the day were wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious. When I did
rise, about two hours later, I had forgotten the circumstance; the first
thing I saw, however, on quitting my chamber, recalled it; just pushed
in at the door of my sitting-room, and still standing on end, was a
wooden packing-case--a rough deal affair, wide but shallow; a porter
had doubtless shoved it forward, but seeing no occupant of the room, had
left it at the entrance.
“That is none of mine,” thought I, approaching; “it must be meant for
somebody else.” I stooped to examine the address:--
“Wm. Crimsworth, Esq., No --, -- St., Brussels.”
I was puzzled, but concluding that the best way to obtain information
was to ask within, I cut the cords and opened the case. Green baize
enveloped its contents, sewn carefully at the sides; I ripped the
pack-thread with my pen-knife, and still, as the seam gave way, glimpses
of gilding appeared through the widening interstices. Boards and baize
being at length removed, I lifted from the case a large picture, in a
magnificent frame; leaning it against a chair, in a position where the
light from the window fell favourably upon it, I stepped back--already I
had mounted my spectacles. A portrait-painter’s sky (the most sombre and
threatening of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional depth of
hue, raised in full relief a pale, pensive-looking female face, shadowed
with soft dark hair, almost blending with the equally dark clouds;
large, solemn eyes looked reflectively into mine; a thin cheek rested
on a delicate little hand; a shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half
showed a slight figure. A listener (had there been one) might have heard
me, after ten minutes’ silent gazing, utter the word “Mother!” I might
have said more--but with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy
rouses consciousness; it reminds me that only crazy people talk to
themselves, and then I think out my monologue, instead of speaking it.
I had thought a long while, and a long while had contemplated the
intelligence, the sweetness, and--alas! the sadness also of those fine,
grey eyes, the mental power of that forehead, and the rare sensibility
of that serious mouth, when my glance, travelling downwards, fell on a
narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the picture, between the frame and
the canvas. Then I first asked, “Who sent this picture? Who thought of
me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth Hall, and now commits it to
the care of its natural keeper?” I took the note from its niche; thus it
spoke:--
“There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his
bells, a dog a bone. You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face
with sugar; by witnessing how the fool’s ecstasy makes a greater fool of
him than ever; by watching the dog’s nature come out over his bone.
In giving William Crimsworth his mother’s picture, I give him sweets,
bells, and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold
the result; I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the
auctioneer could only have promised me that pleasure.
“H. Y. H.
“P.S.--You said last night you positively declined adding another item
to your account with me; don’t you think I’ve saved you that trouble?”
I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the
case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it
out of sight under my bed. My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain;
I determined to look no more till I could look at my ease. If Hunsden
had come in at that moment, I should have said to him, “I owe you
nothing, Hunsden--not a fraction of a farthing: you have paid yourself
in taunts!”
Too anxious to remain any longer quiescent, I had no sooner breakfasted,
than I repaired once more to M. Vandenhuten’s, scarcely hoping to find
him at home; for a week had barely elapsed since my first call: but
fancying I might be able to glean information as to the time when his
return was expected. A better result awaited me than I had anticipated,
for though the family were yet at Ostend, M. Vandenhuten had come over
to Brussels on business for the day. He received me with the quiet
kindness of a sincere though not excitable man. I had not sat five
minutes alone with him in his bureau, before I became aware of a sense
of ease in his presence, such as I rarely experienced with strangers.
I was surprised at my own composure, for, after all, I had come on
business to me exceedingly painful--that of soliciting a favour. I asked
on what basis the calm rested--I feared it might be deceptive. Ere long
I caught a glimpse of the ground, and at once I felt assured of its
solidity; I knew where it was.
M. Vandenhuten was rich, respected, and influential; I, poor, despised
and powerless; so we stood to the world at large as members of the
world’s society; but to each other, as a pair of human beings, our
positions were reversed. The Dutchman (he was not Flamand, but pure
Hollandais) was slow, cool, of rather dense intelligence, though sound
and accurate judgment; the Englishman far more nervous, active, quicker
both to plan and to practise, to conceive and to realize. The Dutchman
was benevolent, the Englishman susceptible; in short our characters
dovetailed, but my mind having more fire and action than his,
instinctively assumed and kept the predominance.
This point settled, and my position well ascertained, I addressed him
on the subject of my affairs with that genuine frankness which full
confidence can alone inspire. It was a pleasure to him to be so appealed
to; he thanked me for giving him this opportunity of using a little
exertion in my behalf. I went on to explain to him that my wish was not
so much to be helped, as to be put into the way of helping myself;
of him I did not want exertion--that was to be my part--but only
information and recommendation. Soon after I rose to go. He held out his
hand at parting--an action of greater significance with foreigners
than with Englishmen. As I exchanged a smile with him, I thought the
benevolence of his truthful face was better than the intelligence of my
own. Characters of my order experience a balm-like solace in the contact
of such souls as animated the honest breast of Victor Vandenhuten.
The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my existence
during its lapse resembled a sky of one of those autumnal nights which
are specially haunted by meteors and falling stars. Hopes and fears,
expectations and disappointments, descended in glancing showers from
zenith to horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift
each vanishing apparition. M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set me
on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to secure
them for me; but for a long time solicitation and recommendation were
vain--the door either shut in my face when I was about to walk in,
or another candidate, entering before me, rendered my further advance
useless. Feverish and roused, no disappointment arrested me; defeat
following fast on defeat served as stimulants to will. I forgot
fastidiousness, conquered reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I
persevered, I remonstrated, I dunned. It is so that openings are forced
into the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round. My
perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked. I was
inquired about; my former pupils’ parents, gathering the reports of
their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and they echoed the
word: the sound, bandied about at random, came at last to ears which,
but for its universality, it might never have reached; and at the very
crisis when I had tried my last effort and knew not what to do, Fortune
looked in at me one morning, as I sat in drear and almost desperate
deliberation on my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity of an old
acquaintance--though God knows I had never met her before--and threw a
prize into my lap.
In the second week of October, 18--, I got the appointment of English
professor to all the classes of ---- College, Brussels, with a salary
of three thousand francs per annum; and the certainty of being able, by
dint of the reputation and publicity accompanying the position, to make
as much more by private means. The official notice, which communicated
this information, mentioned also that it was the strong recommendation
of M. Vandenhuten, negociant, which had turned the scale of choice in my
favour.
No sooner had I read the announcement than I hurried to M. Vandenhuten’s
bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and when he had perused
it, took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity.
My vivid words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted
sensation. He said he was happy--glad to have served me; but he had
done nothing meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime--only
scratched a few words on a sheet of paper.
Again I repeated to him--
“You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do not
feel an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do not feel
disposed to shun you because you have done me a favour; from this day
you must consent to admit me to your intimate acquaintance, for I shall
hereafter recur again and again to the pleasure of your society.”
“Ainsi soit-il,” was the reply, accompanied by a smile of benignant
content. I went away with its sunshine in my heart.