LITMIR.BIZ

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her side; nevertheless, everybody present showed her the more civility and amiable attention because each was undermining her. Her brother, though no longer able to be on the scene of action, was well aware of what was going on, and as soon as he perceived that his sister's hopes were killed he became an implacable and terrible antagonist to the Rogrons.

      Every one will immediately picture to themselves Mademoiselle Habert when they know that if she had not kept an institution for young ladies she would still have had the air of a school-mistress. School-mistresses have a way of their own in putting on their caps. Just as old Englishwomen have acquired a monopoly in turbans, school-mistresses have a monopoly of these caps. Flowers nod above the frame-work, flowers that are more than artificial; lying by in closets for years the cap is both new and old, even on the day it is first worn. These spinsters make it a point of honor to resemble the lay figures of a painter; they sit on their hips, never on their chairs. When any one speaks to them they turn their whole busts instead of simply turning their heads; and when their gowns creak one is tempted to believe that the mechanism of these beings is out of order. Mademoiselle Habert, an ideal of her species, had a stern eye, a grim mouth, and beneath her wrinkled chin the strings of her cap, always limp and faded, floated as she moved. Two moles, rather large and brown, adorned that chin, and from them sprouted hairs which she allowed to grow rampant like clematis. And finally, to complete her portrait, she took snuff, and took it ungracefully.

      The company went to work at their boston. Mademoiselle Habert sat opposite to Sylvie, with the colonel at her side opposite to Madame de Chargeboeuf. Bathilde was near her mother and Rogron. Sylvie placed Pierrette between herself and the colonel; Rogron had set out a second card-table, in case other company arrived. Two lamps were on the chimney-piece between the candelabra and the clock, and the tables were lighted by candles at forty sous a pound, paid for by the price of the cards.

      "Come, Pierrette, take your work, my dear," said Sylvie, with treacherous softness, noticing that the girl was watching the colonel's game.

      She usually affected to treat Pierrette well before company. This deception irritated the honest Breton girl, and made her despise her cousin. She took her embroidery, but as she drew her stitches she still watched Gouraud's play. Gouraud behaved as if he did not know the girl was near him. Sylvie noticed this apparent indifference and thought it extremely suspicious. Presently she undertook a grande misere in hearts, the pool being full of counters, besides containing twenty-seven sous. The rest of the company had now arrived; among them the deputy-judge Desfondrilles, who for the last two months had abandoned the Tiphaine party and connected himself more or less with the Vinets. He was standing before the chimney-piece, with his back to the fire and the tails of his coat over his arms, looking round the fine salon of which Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf was the shining ornament; for it really seemed as if all the reds of its decoration had been made expressly to enhance her style of beauty. Silence reigned; Pierrette was watching the game, Sylvie's attention was distracted from her by the interest of the grande misere.

      "Play that," said Pierrette to the colonel, pointing to a heart in his hand.

      The colonel began a sequence in hearts; the hearts all lay between himself and Sylvie; the colonel won her ace, though it was protected by five small hearts.

      "That's not fair!" she cried. "Pierrette saw my hand, and the colonel took her advice."

      "But, mademoiselle," said Celeste, "it was the colonel's game to play hearts after you began them."

      The scene made Monsieur Desfondrilles smile; his was a keen mind, which found much amusement in watching the play of all the self-interests in Provins.

      "Yes, it was certainly the colonel's game," said Cournant the notary, not knowing what the question was.

      Sylvie threw a look at Mademoiselle Habert, – one of those glances which pass from old maid to old maid, feline and cruel.

      "Pierrette, you did see my hand," said Sylvie fixing her eyes on the girl.

      "No, cousin."

      "I was looking at you all," said the deputy-judge, "and I can swear that Pierrette saw no one's hand but the colonel's."

      "Pooh!" said Gouraud, alarmed, "little girls know how to slide their eyes into everything."

      "Ah!" exclaimed Sylvie.

      "Yes," continued Gouraud. "I dare say she looked into your hand to play you a trick. Didn't you, little one?"

      "No," said the truthful Breton, "I wouldn't do such a thing; if I had, it would have been in my cousin's interests."

      "You know you are a story-teller and a little fool," cried Sylvie. "After what happened this morning do you suppose I can believe a word you say? You are a – "

      Pierrette did not wait for Sylvie to finish her sentence; foreseeing a torrent of insults, she rushed away without a light and ran to her room. Sylvie turned white with anger and muttered between her teeth, "She shall pay for this!"

      "Shall you pay for the misere?" said Madame de Chargeboeuf.

      As she spoke Pierrette struck her head against the door of the passage which some one had left open.

      "Good! I'm glad of it," cried Sylvie, as they heard the blow.

      "She must be hurt," said Desfondrilles.

      "She deserves it," replied Sylvie.

      "It was a bad blow," said Mademoiselle Habert.

      Sylvie thought she might escape paying her misere if she went to see after Pierrette, but Madame de Chargeboeuf stopped her.

      "Pay us first," she said, laughing; "you will forget it when you come back."

      The remark, based on the old maid's trickery and her bad faith in paying her debts at cards was approved by the others. Sylvie sat down and thought no more of Pierrette, – an indifference which surprised no one. When the game was over, about half past nine o'clock, she flung herself into an easy chair at the corner of the fireplace and did not even rise as her guests departed. The colonel was torturing her; she did not know what to think of him.

      "Men are so false!" she cried, as she went to bed.

      Pierrette had given herself a frightful blow on the head, just above the ear, at the spot where young girls part their hair when they put their "front hair" in curlpapers. The next day there was a large swelling.

      "God has punished you," said Sylvie at the breakfast table. "You disobeyed me; you treated me with disrespect in leaving the room before I had finished my sentence; you got what you deserved."

      "Nevertheless," said Rogron, "she ought to put on a compress of salt and water."

      "Oh, it is nothing at all, cousin," said Pierrette.

      The poor child had reached a point where even such a remark seemed to her a proof of kindness.

      VIII

      THE LOVES OF JACQUES AND PIERRETTE

      The week ended as it had begun, in continual torture. Sylvie grew ingenious, and found refinements of tyranny with almost savage cruelty; the red Indians might have taken a lesson from her. Pierrette dared not complain of her vague sufferings, nor of the actual pains she now felt in her head. The origin of her cousin's present anger was the non-revelation of Brigaut's arrival. With Breton obstinacy Pierrette was determined to keep silence, – a resolution that is perfectly explicable. It is easy to see how her thoughts turned to Brigaut, fearing some danger for him if he were discovered, yet instinctively longing to have him near her, and happy in knowing he was in Provins. What joy to have seen him! That single glimpse was like the look an exile casts upon his country, or the martyr lifts to heaven, where his eyes, gifted with second-sight, can enter while flames consume his body.

      Pierrette's glance had been so thoroughly understood by the major's son that, as he planed his planks or took his measures or joined his wood, he was working his brains to find out some way of communicating with her. He ended by choosing the simplest of all schemes. At a certain hour of the night Pierrette must lower a letter by a string from her window. In the midst of the girl's own sufferings, she too was sustained by the hope of being able to communicate with Brigaut. The same desire was in

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