“Yes; that shall be your punishment.”
“For what? What have I done?” asked she with an air of great innocence.
“You have made me happy, me who adore you,” was the evasive reply.
Josephine came in from her walk with a high color and beaming eyes, and screamed, “Run, Rose!”
On this concise, and to us not very clear instruction, Rose slipped up the secret stair. She saw Camille come in and gravely unpack his little portmanteau, and dispose his things in the drawers with soldier-like neatness, and hum an agreeable march. She came and told Josephine.
“Ah!” said Josephine with a little sigh of pleasure, and a gentle triumph in her eyes.
She had not only got her desire, but had arrived at it her way,—woman’s way, round about.
This adroit benevolence led to more than she bargained for. She and Camille were now together every day: and their hearts, being under restraint in public, melted together all the more in their stolen interviews.
At the third delicious interview the modest Camille begged Josephine to be his wife directly.
Have you noticed those half tame deer that come up to you in a park so lovingly, with great tender eyes, and, being now almost within reach, stop short, and with bodies fixed like statues on pedestals, crane out their graceful necks for sugar, or bread, or a chestnut, or a pocket-handkerchief? Do but offer to put your hand upon them, away they bound that moment twenty yards, and then stand quite still, and look at your hand and you, with great inquiring, suspicious, tender eyes.