He opened his eyes at the professor’s touch, and fixed them upon the old gentleman in such a serene stare of untroubled complacency as one sometimes receives from a baby nine months old.

“Well, sir”—­the professor, from some subtle delicacy of feeling respecting the prospective change in their relationship, adopted this form of address in preference to that more paternal one he had been in the habit of using since Bressant’s accident—­“well, sir, how do you find yourself now?”

“Much better; I shall soon be well now.  I feel differently from ever before—­very light and full here,” said the young man, indicating the region of his heart.

“I’ve seen Sophie,” observed Professor Valeyon, after a somewhat long silence, which Bressant, who had calmly closed his eyes again, showed no intention of breaking.

“Sophie and I love each other,” responded he, meditatively, and rather to himself than to the father.  The latter could not but feel some surprise at the untroubled confidence the young man’s manner displayed.  Before he could put his thought into fitting words, the other spoke again.

“I’ve been thinking, I should like to marry her.”

“You’d like to marry her?” repeated the old gentleman, with a mixture of sternness and astonishment, his forehead reddening.  “What else do you suppose I expected, sir?”

Bressant turned over on his side, and regarded him with some curiosity.

“Do all people who love each other, or because they love each other, marry?” demanded he.

For a moment, the professor seemed to suspect some latent satire in this question; but the young man’s face convinced him to the contrary.

“In many marriages, there’s little love—­true love—­on either side; that’s certain,” said he, passing his hand down his face, and looking grave.  “But marriage was ordained for none but lovers.”

“The reason I want to be married to Sophie is because I love her so much I couldn’t live without her,” resumed Bressant, as if stating some unusual circumstance.

“Humph!” ejaculated the professor, partly amused and partly puzzled.

Bressant rubbed his forehead, and fingered his beard awhile, and then continued: 

“We’ve been reading poetry lately, and romances, and such things.  I used to think they were nonsense—­good for nothing; because they came out so beautifully, and represented love to be so great an element in the world.  But now I see they were not good enough; they are much below the truth; I mean to write poetry and romances myself!”

This tickled Professor Valeyon so much, that he burst out in a most genuine laugh.  The intellectual animal of two or three months before seemed to have laid aside all claims to what his brain had won for him, and to be beginning existence over again with a new object and new materials.  And had Bressant indeed been a child, the succession of his ideas and impulses could hardly have been more primitive and natural.