“Do not be extravagant,” he said.

“There is no danger,” she replied, striking her pocket.

Then, returning to him, she embraced him passionately.

“Work!”

And she ran out.

They had loved each other for two years.  At the time they met, Saniel was giving a course of lectures on anatomy at a young ladies’ school just outside of Paris, and every time he went out there he saw a young woman whom he could not help noticing.  She came and went on the same trains that he did, and gave lessons in a rival school.  As she frequently carried under her arm a large cartoon, and sometimes a plaster cast, he concluded that she gave lessons in drawing.  At first he paid no attention to her.  What was she to him?  He had more important things in his head than women.  But little by little, and because she was reserved and discreet, he was struck by the vivacity and gayety of her expression.  He really enjoyed looking at this pretty and pleasing young woman.  However, his looks said nothing; if their eyes smiled when they met, that was all; they did not make each other’s acquaintance.  When they left the train they did not notice each other; if he took the left side of the street, she took the other, and vice versa.  This state of things lasted several months without a word having been exchanged between them; in due time they learned each other’s names and professions.  She was a professor of drawing, as he supposed, the daughter of an artist who had been dead several years, and was called Mademoiselle Phillis Cormier.  He was a physician for whom a brilliant future was prophesied, a man of power, who would some day be famous; and, very naturally, their attitude remained the same.  There was no particular reason why it should change.  But accident made a reason.  One summer day, at the hour when they ordinarily took the train back to Paris, the sky suddenly became overcast, and it was evident that a violent storm was approaching.  Saniel saw Phillis hurrying to the station without an umbrella, and, as some friend had lent him one, he decided to speak to her for the first time.

“It seems as if the storm would overtake us before we reach the station.  As you have no umbrella, will you permit me to walk beside you, and to shelter you with mine?”

She replied with a smile, and they walked side by side until the rain began to fall, when she drew nearer to him, and they entered the station talking gayly.

“Your umbrella is better than Virginia’s skirt,” she said.

“And what is Virginia’s skirt?”

“Have you not read Paul and Virginia?”

“No.”

She looked at him with a mocking smile, wondering what superior men read.