“Arithmetically speaking!” the statistician quickly explained. He ventured to lay a forefinger on the back of her hand, but one glance of her eye removed it. “You see, that’s merely arithmetically considered. Now, of course, looking at it geographically—why, of course! And—why, as to that, there are ladies”—
Madame Beausoleil rose, left Mr. Tarbox holding the yarn, and went down the hall, whose outer door had opened and shut. A moment later she entered the room again.
“Claude!”
Marguerite’s heart sank. Her guess was right: the chief engineer had come. And early in the morning Claude was gone.
CHAPTER V.
FATHER AND SON.
Such strange things storms do,—here purifying the air, yonder treading down rich harvests, now replenishing the streams, and now strewing shores with wrecks; here a blessing, there a calamity. See what this one had done for Marguerite! Well, what? She could not lament; she dared not rejoice. Oh! if she were Claude and Claude were she, how quickly—
She wondered how many miles a day she could learn to walk if she should start out into the world on foot to find somebody, as she had heard that Bonaventure had once done to find her mother’s lover. There are no Bonaventures now, she thinks, in these decayed times.
“Mamma,”—her speech was French,—“why do we never see Bonaventure? How far is it to Grande Pointe?”