“Oh—it did not matter. No doubt if it had not been for the lessons you would not have come.”
Something in her tone made him look furtively at the pale altered contour of her cheek.
“Of course not!” she exclaimed vexedly. “How could I ask such a thing! It would be very annoying were it not for the instruction!”
“I enjoy——”
“Oh, you do! Don’t you suppose I know that? Instruct! Instruct! Instruct! I am tired of it!”
“You——”
“No, I don’t!” she interrupted savagely. “What is the good of all this learning, all these black books? Who loves me any more for it? Does it add a dearer pink to my cheek?” She turned her face partly toward him and in her voice was a wave of pain. “Do you think it gives lustre to my eye or music to my words?” Her tones became mocking. “Do you really think it will puff away wrinkles? A cosmetic, a tire-woman, a——” She stamped her foot peevishly. “I tell you, priest, I will have no more of it, never!”
“Learning enlightens,” said the Breton aimlessly, “as a mirror——”
“Oyah! A mirror! So is a tub of water holding the image of the sun, but what warmth comes from that reflection? I would like you to tell me, priest, with all your learning, what there is substantial in a reflected image? What if learning were the painting of the world’s ocean acts, could fish dwell in its mock waters? And I would like to know if there is the fragrance of one rose in ten myriad miles of embroidered flowers?”
He did not reply, and again came the half-kindly truce of silence, but only half, for there was still the tapping of her foot. And how varied is that speech! What a world of meaning is in the tapping of a woman’s foot! So the Breton listened, wonderingly to the thoughts that came from the tap, tap, tap on the marble floor.