nto
classe happy; you spoiled my day."

"No, Monsieur, only an hour or two of it, and that unintentionally."

"Unintentionally! No. It was my fete-day; everybody wished me happiness
but you. The little children of the third division gave each her knot
of violets, lisped each her congratulation:--you--nothing. Not a bud,
leaf, whisper--not a glance. Was this unintentional?"

"I meant no harm."

"Then you really did not know our custom? You were unprepared? You
would willingly have laid out a few centimes on a flower to give me
pleasure, had you been aware that it was expected? Say so, and all is
forgotten, and the pain soothed."

"I did know that it was expected: I _was_ prepared; yet I laid out no
centimes on flowers."

"It is well--you do right to be honest. I should almost have hated you
had you flattered and lied. Better declare at once 'Paul Carl
Emanuel--je te deteste, mon garcon!'--than smile an interest, look an
affection, and be false and cold at heart. False and cold I don't think
you are; but you have made a great mistake in life, that I believe; I
think your judgment is warped--that you are indifferent where you ought
to be grateful--and perhaps devoted and infatuated, where you ought to
be cool as your name. Don't suppose that I wish you to have a passion
for me, Mademoiselle; Dieu vous en garde! What do you start for?
Because I said passion? Well, I say it again. There is such a word, and
there is such a thing--though not within these walls, thank heaven! You
are no child that one should not speak of what exists; but I only
uttered the word--the thing, I assure you, is alien to my whole life
and views. It died in the past--in the present it lies buried--its
grave is deep-dug, well-heaped, and many winters old: in the future
there will be a resurrection, as I believe to my souls consolation; but
all will then be changed--form and feeling: the mortal will have put on
immortality--it will rise, not for earth, but heaven. All I say to
_you_, Miss Lucy Snowe, is--that you ought to treat Professor Paul
Emanuel decently."

I could not, and did not contradict such a sentiment.

"Tell me," he pursued, "when it is _your_ fete-day, and I will not
grudge a few centimes for a small offering."

"You will be like me, Monsieur: this cost more than a few centimes, and
I did not grudge its price."

And taking from the open desk the little box, I put it into his hand.

"It lay ready in my lap this morning," I co