“Well, we'll see,” she said. And she went away.
Presently when I had reached the boarding school, I took Pere Piquedent aside, and said:
“You must write to her; she is infatuated with you.”
And he wrote a long letter, tenderly affectionate, full of phrases and circumlocutions, metaphors and similes, philosophy and academic gallantry; and I took on myself the responsibility of delivering it to the young woman.
She read it with gravity, with emotion; then she murmured:
“How well he writes! It is easy to see he has got education! Does he really mean to marry me?”
I replied intrepidly: “Faith, he has lost his head about you!”
“Then he must invite me to dinner on Sunday at the Ile des Fleurs.”
I promised that she should be invited.
Pere Piquedent was much touched by everything I told him about her.