Here the latch of Madame Beck’s chamber-door
(opening into the nursery) gave a sudden click, as
if the hand holding it had been slightly convulsed;
there was the suppressed explosion of an irrepressible
sneeze. These little accidents will happen to
the best of us. Madame—excellent woman!
was then on duty. She had come home quietly,
stolen up-stairs on tip-toe; she was in her chamber.
If she had not sneezed, she would have heard all,
and so should I; but that unlucky sternutation routed
Dr. John. While he stood aghast, she came forward
alert, composed, in the best yet most tranquil spirits:
no novice to her habits but would have thought she
had just come in, and scouted the idea of her ear
having been glued to the key-hole for at least ten
minutes. She affected to sneeze again, declared
she was “enrhumee,” and then proceeded
volubly to recount her “courses en fiacre.”
The prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the doctor.
THE FETE.
As soon as Georgette was well, Madame sent her away
into the country. I was sorry; I loved the child,
and her loss made me poorer than before. But
I must not complain. I lived in a house full of
robust life; I might have had companions, and I chose
solitude. Each of the teachers in turn made me
overtures of special intimacy; I tried them all.
One I found to be an honest woman, but a narrow thinker,
a coarse feeler, and an egotist. The second was
a Parisienne, externally refined—at heart,
corrupt—without a creed, without a principle,
without an affection: having penetrated the outward
crust of decorum in this character, you found a slough
beneath. She had a wonderful passion for presents;
and, in this point, the third teacher—a
person otherwise characterless and insignificant—closely
resembled her. This last-named had also one other
distinctive property—that of avarice.
In her reigned the love of money for its own sake.
The sight of a piece of gold would bring into her
eyes a green glisten, singular to witness. She
once, as a mark of high favour, took me up-stairs,
and, opening a secret door, showed me a hoard—a
mass of coarse, large coin—about fifteen
guineas, in five-franc pieces. She loved this
hoard as a bird loves its eggs. These were her
savings. She would come and talk to me about
them with an infatuated and persevering dotage, strange
to behold in a person not yet twenty-five.
The Parisienne, on the other hand, was prodigal and
profligate (in disposition, that is: as to action,
I do not know). That latter quality showed its
snake-head to me but once, peeping out very cautiously.
A curious kind of reptile it seemed, judging from the
glimpse I got; its novelty whetted my curiosity:
if it would have come out boldly, perhaps I might
philosophically have stood my ground, and coolly surveyed
the long thing from forked tongue to scaly tail-tip;
but it merely rustled in the leaves of a bad novel;
and, on encountering a hasty and ill-advised demonstration
of wrath, recoiled and vanished, hissing. She
hated me from that day.
