'Good-night, my child,' said Rosselin, with a tenderness in his voice that was new to her ear. He sighed as he too went on his way through the dusky dewy fields, sweet with the breath of browsing cattle and murmurous with the whispers of the leaves.
CHAPTER XXXV.
When Othmar returned to Paris he paid Rosselin a visit.
'You have been to Chevreuse?' asked Rosselin. 'No?'
'No,' said Othmar with sincerity and some annoyance, 'I am still at Amyôt. I only come to Paris occasionally. Is she well? Are you satisfied?'
'She is quite well,' replied Rosselin. 'The answer to the other question is less simple. I am satisfied with her talent, not with her character.'
'What do you mean?'
'Oh, nothing that is her fault. I merely meant that she is, as Madame la Comtesse once said, "une sensitive." Such people have no business in public careers. You do not make street-posts out of the stems of a sensitive plant. The Latins gave the statues that were destined to stand in thoroughfares brass discs to protect them. If you have not the brass disc you must not stand even in the peristyle of a theatre.'
'I do not think she is weak. Had she been weak she would not have left the island as she did.'