“Say three souls, Monsieur l’Abbe!”
He did not ask whose was the third, nor even why she
had insisted that this delicate commission must be
executed that same day. He only bowed when she
said again: “At four o’clock:
Madame d’Argy will be prepared to see you.
Thank you, Monsieur l’Abbe.” And then,
as she descended the staircase, he bestowed upon her
silently his most earnest benediction, before returning
to the cold cutlet that was on his breakfast table.
Giselle did not breakfast much better than he.
In truth, M. de Talbrun being absent, she sat looking
at her son, who was eating with a good appetite, while
she drank only a cup of tea; after which, she dressed
herself, with more than usual care, hiding by rice-powder
the trace of recent tears on her complexion, and arranging
her fair hair in the way that was most becoming to
her, under a charming little bonnet covered with gold
net-work which corresponded with the embroidery on
an entirely new costume.
When she went into the dining-room Enguerrand, who
was there with his nurse finishing his dessert, cried
out: “Oh! mamma, how pretty you are!”
which went to her heart. She kissed him two or
three times—one kiss after another.
“I try to be pretty for your sake, my darling.”
“Will you take me with you?”
“No, but I will come back for you, and take
you out.”
She walked a few steps, and then turned to give him
such a kiss as astonished him, for he said:
“Is it really going to be long?”
“What?”
“Before you come back? You kiss me as if
you were going for a long time, far away.”
“I kissed you to give myself courage.”
Enguerrand, who, when he had a hard lesson to learn,
always did the same thing, appeared to understand
her.
“You are going to do some thing you don’t
like.”
“Yes, but I have to do it, because you see it
is my duty.”
“Do grown people have duties?”
“Even more than children.”
“But it isn’t your duty to write a copy—your
writing is so pretty. Oh! that’s what I
hate most. And you always say it is my duty to
write my copy. I’ll go and do it while
you do your duty. So that will seem as if we
were both together doing something we don’t like—won’t
it, mamma?”
She kissed him again, even more passionately.
“We shall be always together, we two, my love!”
This word love struck the little ear of Enguerrand
as having a new accent, a new meaning, and, boy-like,
he tried to turn this excess of tenderness to advantage.
“Since you love me so much, will you take me
to see the puppet-show?”
“Anywhere you like—when I come back.
Goodby.”
A CHIVALROUS SOUL
