f eighteen. So that is how these big-wigs employ
their leisure moments!

The library where I found them was full of book cases-open bookcases,
bookcases with glass doors, tall bookcases, dwarf bookcases, bookcases
standing on legs, bookcases standing on the floor--of statuettes yellow
with smoke, of desks crowded with paper-weights, paper-knives, pens, and
inkstands of "artistic" pat terns. He was seated at the table, with his
back to the fire, his arm lifted, and a hairpin between his finger
and thumb--the pivot round which his paper twist was spinning briskly.
Across the table stood his daughter, leaning forward with her chin on
her hands and her white teeth showing as she laughed for laughing's
sake, to give play to her young spirits and gladden her old father's
heart as he gazed on her, delighted.

I must confess it made a pretty picture; and M. Charnot at that moment
was extremely unlike the M. Charnot who had confronted me from behind
the desk.

I was not left long to contemplate.

The moment I lifted the 'portiere' the girl jumped up briskly and
regarded me with a touch of haughtiness, meant, I think, to hide a
slight confusion. To compare small things with great, Diana must have
worn something of that look at sight of Actaeon. M. Charnot did not
rise, but hearing somebody enter, turned half-round in his armchair,
while his eyes, still dazzled with the lamplight, sought the intruder in
the partial shadow of the room.

I felt myself doubly uneasy in the presence of this reader of the Early
Text and of this laughing girl.

"Sir," I began, "I owe you an apology--"

He recognized me. The girl moved a step.

"Stay, Jeanne, stay. We shall not take long. This gentleman has come to
offer an apology."

This was a cruel beginning.

She thought so, too, perhaps, and withdrew discreetly into a dim corner,
near the bookcase at the end of the room.

"I have felt deep regret, sir, for that accident the other day--I
set down the penholder clumsily, in equilibrium--unstable
equilibrium--besides, I had no notion there was a reader behind the
desk. Of course, if I had been aware, I should--I should have acted
differently."

M. Charnot allowed me to flounder on with the contemplative satisfaction
of an angler who has got a fish at the end of his line. He seemed to
find me so very stupid, that as a matter of fact I became stupid. And
then, there was no answer--not a word. Silence, alas! is not the reproof
of kings al