 in its folds.
    Hereupon I was made the object of a string of strictures rather piquant than
polite. I listened with zest. After those two days of unnatural silence, it was
better than music to hear M. Paul haranguing again just in his old fashion. I
listened, and meantime solaced myself and Sylvie with the contents of a
bonbonnière, which M. Emanuel's gifts kept well supplied with chocolate comfits.
It pleased him to see even a small matter from his hand duly appreciated. He
looked at me and the spaniel while we shared the spoil; he put up his penknife.
Touching my hand with the bundle of new-cut quills, he said: -
    »Dîtes-donc, petite soeur - speak frankly - what have you thought of me
during the last two days?«
    But of this question I would take no manner of notice; its purport made my
eyes fill. I caressed Sylvie assiduously. M. Paul, leaning over the desk, bent
towards us: -
    »I called myself your brother,« he said; »I hardly know what I am - brother
- friend - I cannot tell. I know I think of you - I feel I wish you well - but I
must check myself; you are to be feared. My best friends point out danger, and
whisper caution.«
    »You do right to listen to your friends. By all means be cautious.«
    »It is your religion - your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed, whose
influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed panoply. You are
good - Père Silas calls you good, and loves you - but your terrible, proud,
earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It expresses itself by your eye at
times; and again, it gives you certain tones and certain gestures that make my
flesh creep. You are not demonstrative, and yet, just now - when you handled
that tract - my God! I thought Lucifer smiled.«
    »Certainly I don't respect that tract - what then?«
    »Not respect that tract? But it is the pure essence of faith, love, charity!
I thought it would touch you: in its gentleness, I trusted that it could not
fail. I laid it in your desk with a prayer. I must indeed be a sinner: Heaven
will not hear the petitions that come warmest from my heart. You scorn my little
offering. Oh, cela me fait mal!«
    »Monsieur, I don't scorn it - at least, not as your gift
