‘What a sweet woman!’ cried Dr. Vermont, in amazement. ‘My sister, your kindness confounds me. Life has not taught me to expect anything like it, and I begin to believe I am not the sage I have lately loved to contemplate. What, indeed, if these steadfast, silent creatures be the sages after all, and we, the philosophers and seekers after light, but the fools, who wear cap and bells, and mistake them for badges of sovereignty.’
‘Here comes Gabrielle, François,’ said Mademoiselle, interrupting his reflections.
The little girl lingered shyly upon the edge of the gallery, which Joséphine endeavoured to make her cross by whispered entreaty and pushes. She did not know this man who was her father, and her small brains were busy contriving a way to greet him. She made a pretty picture thus, in grey silk and white lace, with a broad crimson sash, and a big bow of red ribbon on the top of her curly brown head. Dr. Vermont stared at her as an object of natural curiosity rather than a charming little girl, his own daughter.
‘She is very like you, Henriette,’ he said, and held out his hand with an ingratiating smile.
Gabrielle came slowly forward, and took it; then looked up into his face in grave and silent deliberation. She decided suddenly to offer her cheek for the paternal kiss, which she did, with much conscious dignity and no sense of pleasure whatever.
‘Let me see,’ said Dr. Vermont, when he had perfunctorily kissed her, ‘she is now about ten. The very age her mother was when I first beheld her. Poor pretty Adèle! She does not in any way resemble her.’
He sighed deeply, and Henriette’s eyes, fixed on Gabrielle, filled with tears.
‘What rooms does Monsieur wish me to prepare for him?’ Joséphine asked in the pause.
The Doctor started, and remembered, with a quick disagreeable sensation, the nearness of his friends, and its extraordinary significance. If that good soul Joséphine but knew! If Henriette suspected!
‘That reminds me, Henriette—I have left three friends outside. I suppose you can put us up down here, or upstairs, for a couple of nights?’