"Lifting her full and melancholy blue eyes on me, filled with tears, she said, with angelic sweetness, 'I thank you, madame, for your kindness; but I cannot say one word as to the past; I was apprehended,—I was doing wrong, and I do not therefore complain.' 'But where do you come from? Where have you been since you quitted the Cité? If you went into the country to seek an honest livelihood, say so, and prove it. We will write to the prefect to obtain your liberty, your name will be scratched off the police register, and you will be encouraged in your good resolutions.' 'I beseech you, madame, do not ask me; I cannot answer you,' she replied. 'But, on leaving this house, would you return again to that place of infamy?' 'Oh, never!' she exclaimed. 'What, then, will you do?' 'God only knows!' she replied, letting her head fall on her bosom."
"Very singular! And she expresses herself—"
"In very excellent terms, madame; her deportment is timid and respectful, but without servility; nay, more, in spite of the extreme gentleness of her voice and look, there is in her accent and her attitude a sort of proud sorrow which puzzles me. If she did not belong to that wretched class of which she forms one, I should say that her haughtiness announces a soul which has a consciousness of dignity."
"But this is all a romance!" exclaimed Clémence, deeply interested, and finding, as Rodolph had told her, that nothing was more interesting than to do good. "And how does she behave with the other prisoners? If she is endowed with that dignity of soul that you imagine, she must suffer excessively in the midst of her wretched associates."
"Madame, for me, who observe all from my position, and from habit, all about this young girl is a subject of astonishment. Although she has been here only three days, yet she already possesses a sort of influence over the other prisoners."
"In so short a time?"
"They feel for her not only interest, but almost respect."
"What! these unhappy women—"
"Have sometimes the instinct of a remarkable delicacy in recognising and detecting noble qualities in others; only, they frequently hate those persons whose superiority they are compelled to admit."
"But do they hate this poor girl?"