with your liberty: c'est ce que je ferai.«
    She kept her word. Every slight shackle she had ever laid on me, she, from
that time, with quiet hand removed. Thus I had pleasure in voluntarily
respecting her rules; gratification in devoting double time, in taking double
pains with the pupils she committed to my charge.
    As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would not
live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even my occasional
and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her. M. de Bassompierre,
for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture, blind to this possibility;
unconscious as any child to the signs, the likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of
what, when it drew to an end, he might not approve.
    Whether or not, he would cordially approve, I used to speculate. Difficult
to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen, intent, and
somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite pursuits, but unsuspicious
and trustful in the ordinary affairs of life. From all I could gather, he seemed
to regard his daughterling as still but a child, and probably had not yet
admitted the notion that others might look on her in a different light: he would
speak of what should be done when Polly was a woman, when she should be grown
up; and Polly, standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take his
honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-gray locks; and, at
other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she never said, »Papa, I am
grown up.«
    She had different moods for different people. With her father she really was
still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and playful. With me she was
serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling could make her. With Mrs. Bretton
she was docile and reliant, but not expansive. With Graham she was shy, at
present very shy; at moments she tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured
to shun him. His step made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke,
her answers failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed and
disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.
    »My little Polly,« he said once, »you live too retired a life; if you grow
to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted for society. You
really make quite a