Thus, one evening, in that chaste and passionate scene where Ivanhoe declares his love for the beautiful Saxon, I substituted for the speech of the Crusader a long monologue, in which I made the most direct allusions to Marie and myself, by recalling a thousand souvenirs of our walks and talks.
Marie seemed quite overcome,—troubled. She looked at me reprovingly.
I stopped reading.
"I don't wish to interrupt you, M. Arthur," said Madame Kerouët, "for I don't think I ever heard you read so well as you have to-day."
Then putting down her distaff, she said, naïvely: "Ah, a woman would surely have a heart of stone not to have pity on a lover who talked like that. I know very little about it, but it seems to me that one could say no more than what Ivanhoe says,—it is all so true and natural."
"Oh, it is really all very beautiful," said Marie, "but M. Arthur must be tired. I will read now in my turn."
As she took, in spite of my resistance, the book from my hand, she looked for the improvised passage, and not finding it said, saucily:
"The pages that you have just been reading are so beautiful that I want to read them over again."
"Thou art right, Marie," said her aunt; "I, too, would like to hear them once more."
"Ah, mon Dieu, ten o'clock, already!" said I, to change the subject. "I must be going."