"Only your friendship,—your—your esteem, monsieur,—it is enough. Yet now that your affairs are all right and that you are happy, we must—must part,—it will be necessary,—and—and——" There was a pleading note in her low voice.
"Well?"
"You have been a brother,—a sort of a brother and protector to me, anyhow, you know, and it would wrong—nobody——"
The blood had slowly mounted to her neck as she spoke and the lips quivered a little as she offered them.
It was the last, and when he was gone she felt that it would strengthen her and enable her to bear up under the burden she had laid upon herself. She went about the additional preparations for the dinner mechanically.
There was not a happier quartette in all Paris on this eventful evening than that which sat around the little table in Jean Marot's humble appartement in ancient Rue St. Jacques.
And poor little Mlle. Fouchette!
The very sharpness of the contrast made her patient, resolute abnegation more beautiful, her sacrifice more complete, her poignant suffering more divine. Unconsciously she rose towards the elevated plane of the Christ. She wore the crown of thorns in her heart; on her face shone the superhuman smile of sainthood.
If in his present sudden and overwhelming happiness Jean forgot Mlle. Fouchette except when she was actually before him he must be forgiven. But neither his father nor Henri Lerouge was so blind, though the latter evidently saw Mlle. Fouchette from a totally different point of view.
The gracious manner and encouraging smile of Mlle. Remy happily diverted Fouchette from the consideration of her critics. Every kind word and every smile went home to Mlle. Fouchette. And for the moment she gave way to the pleasure they created, as a stray kitten leans up against a warm brick. Sometimes it seemed as if she must break down and throw herself upon the breast of this lovely girl and claim her natural right to be kept there, forever next to her heart!