r things; and indeed, after the first few moments of
awkwardness had passed by, she found that she was much less
uncomfortable in Willan's presence than she had anticipated.

Willan's own manner did much to bring this about. He was so deeply in
love with Victorine that it had already transformed his sentiments on
most points, and on none more than in regard to Jeanne. He thought no
better of her character than he had thought before; but he found himself
frequently recollecting, as he had never done before, or at least had
never done in a kindly way, that, after all, she had been his father's
wife for ten years, and it would perhaps have been a more dignified
thing in him to have attempted to make her continue in a style of living
suitable to his father's name than to have relegated her, as he had
done, to her original and lower social station.

Jeanne's behavior towards him was very judicious. Affection is the best
teacher of tact in many an emergency in life; we see it every day among
ignorant and untaught people.

Jeanne knew, or felt without knowing, that the less she appeared to be
conscious of anything unusual or unpleasant in this resumption of
familiar relations on the surface, between herself and Willan, the more
free his mind would be to occupy itself with Victorine; and she acted
accordingly. She never obtruded herself on his attention; she never
betrayed any antagonism toward him, or any recollection of the former
and different footing on which they had lived. A stranger sitting at the
table would not have dreamed, from anything in her manner to him, that
she had ever occupied any other position than that of the landlord's
daughter and landlady of the inn.

A clear-sighted observer looking on at affairs in the Golden Pear for
the next three days would have seen that all the energies of both Victor
and Jeanne were bent to one end,--namely, leaving the coast clear for
Willan Blaycke to fall in love with Victorine. But all that Willan
thought was that Victor and his daughter were far quieter and modester
people than he had supposed, and seemed disposed to keep themselves to
themselves in a most proper fashion. It never crossed his mind that
there was anything odd in his finding Victorine so often and so long
alone in the living-room; in the uniform disappearance of both Victor
and Jeanne at an early hour in the evening. Willan was too much in love
to wonder at or disapprove of anything which gave him an oppor