"My father tells me that you are going to leave us," she said in her impetuous way.
"I have come to ask you not to do so. You may--think what you like."
I did not look at her, but guessed the expression of her determined lips.
"And you are too proud," I said, "to explain. You think that I, like a schoolboy, am going off in a fit of wounded vanity--pleased to cause a little inconvenience, and thus prove my own importance. You think that it is yourself who sends me away, and your father cannot afford to lose my services at this time. You consider it your duty to suppress your own feelings, and tread under foot your own pride--to serve the Vicomte. Your pride further prompts you to give me permission to think what I like of you. Thank you, Mademoiselle."
I was making pretence, in a shallow way no doubt, to study the papers on the table, and Lucille standing before my desk was looking down at my bent head, noting perhaps the grey hairs there. Thus we remained for a minute in silence.
Then turning, she slowly left the room, and I would have given five years of my life to see the expression of her face.
"Qui ne craint pas la mort craint donc la vie."
As I sat in my study, the sounds of the house gradually ceased, and the quiet of night settled down between its ancient walls. It seemed to me at times that the Vicomte was moving in his own room. I knew, however, that the passage between us was locked on both sides. My old patron had said nothing to me on the subject, but I had found the door bolted and the key removed. I never was the man to intrude upon another's privacy, and respected the Vicomte's somewhat incomprehensible humour at this time.
I scarcely knew at what hour I at last went to bed; but the oil in my lamp was nearly exhausted and the candles had burnt low. Taking up one of these, I went to my bedroom, pausing at the head of the black staircase to listen as one instinctively does in a great silence. The household was asleep. A faint patter broke the stillness; Lucille's dog--a small white shadow in the gloom--came towards me from her bedroom, outside of which he slept. He looked up at me with a restrained jerk of the tail, for we were always friends, and his expression said: