"I beg your pardon; I took care to ask him, and he has only written out the parts for the instruments. He thinks nothing of throwing about his writing; but it shall be preserved, for all that."
"And how do you mean to achieve this copy?" demanded Anastase. "When will it be written?"
"It will be ready to-morrow morning."
"Fräulein Cerinthia!" I cried, aghast, "you are not going to sit up all night?"
"No, she is not," returned Anastase, coolly; and he left the sofa and walked to the table in the window where it lay,—a green-bound oblong volume of no slight thickness. "I take this home with me, Maria; and you will not see it until to-morrow at recreation time, when I will arrange for Auchester to join you, and you shall do what you can together."
"Thanks, sir! but surely you won't sit up all night?"
"No, I shall not, nor will a copy be made. In the first place, it will not be proper to make a copy. Leave has not been given, and it cannot be thought of without leave,—did you not know that, Maria? No, I shall not sit up; I am too well off, and far too selfish, too considerate perhaps, besides, to wish to be ill."
Maria bore this as if she were thinking of something else,—namely, Florimond's forehead, on which she had fixed her eyes; and truly, as he stood in the full light which so few contours pass into without detriment, it looked like lambent pearl beneath the golden shadow of his calm brown hair.
My hand was on the back of the sofa; she caught it suddenly in her own and pressed it, as if stirred to commotion by agony of bliss; and at the same moment, yet looking on him, she said, "I wonder whether the Chevalier had so many fine reasons when he chose somebody to administer the leadership, or whether he did it simply because there was no better to be had?"
He smiled, still looking at the book, which he had safely imprisoned between his two arms. "Most likely, in all simplicity. But a leader, even of an orchestra, under his direction is not a fairy queen."