as if I might have gained a
hearing; for, in the first place, though I knew I looked a poor creature, and in
many respects actually was so, yet nature had given me a voice that could make
itself heard, if lifted in excitement or deepened by emotion. In the second
place, while I had no flow, only a hesitating trickle of language, in ordinary
circumstances, yet - under stimulus such as was now rife through the mutinous
mass - I could, in English, have rolled out readily phrases stigmatizing their
proceedings as such proceedings deserved to be stigmatized; and then with some
sarcasm, flavoured with contemptuous bitterness, for the ring-leaders, and
relieved with easy banter for the weaker, but less knavish followers, it seemed
to me that one might possibly get command over this wild herd and bring them
into training, at least. All I could now do was to walk up to Blanche -
Mademoiselle de Melcy, a young baronne - the eldest, tallest, handsomest, and
most vicious - stand before her desk, take from under her hand her
exercise-book, remount the estrade, deliberately read the composition, which I
found very stupid, and as deliberately, and in the face of the whole school,
tear the blotted page in two.
    This action availed to draw attention and check noise. One girl alone, quite
in the background, persevered in the riot with undiminished energy. I looked at
her attentively. She had a pale face, hair like night, broad strong eyebrows,
decided features, and a dark, mutinous, sinister eye: I noted that she sat close
by a little door, which door, I was well aware, opened into a small closet where
books were kept. She was standing up for the purpose of conducting her clamour
with freer energies. I measured her stature and calculated her strength. She
seemed both tall and wiry; but, so the conflict were brief and the attack
unexpected, I thought I might manage her.
    Advancing up the room, looking as cool and careless as I possibly could, in
short, ayant l'air de rien; I slightly pushed the door and found it was ajar. In
an instant, and with sharpness, I had turned on her. In another instant she
occupied the closet, the door was shut, and the key in my pocket.
    It so happened that this girl, Dolores by name and a Catalonian by race, was
the sort of character at once dreaded and hated by all her associates; the act
of summary justice above noted, proved popular: there was