"That's what I do, my dear; I often leave my needle to spin some thread; or, better still, I take my tapestry work. Oh, you shall see; I'm making something very pretty."
"I know your talent—your taste. You have a sitar; you can amuse yourself by playing on it. Chaudoreille has given you some lessons."
"Yes; now I can play as well as he can, for I believe he's not very practised on it, although he says he's a great musician. But all that hardly ever amuses me; I should like much better to sit at the window which looks on the street, but you won't let me open it."
"No, Blanche; too many people are passing in this neighborhood; you would be seen, ogled, insulted, by the bachelors, the pages, who take pleasure in annoying people."
"Well, I won't open my window. However, if you were willing I could put a mask on my face; then they could not see me."
"They would notice you none the less; besides, Blanche, only the court ladies are permitted to wear masks. I repeat to you, avoid the glances of these impertinent louts who run the streets, ogling at all the windows. You are not yet sixteen years old. In some years I shall leave Paris; I shall sell this house, and I shall retire into the country; there you can enjoy more liberty, and there you will taste pleasures which are worth more than any this city could offer you.—But someone is coming into the shop; go, Blanche, upstairs to your room."
The young girl kissed the barber and quickly regained the passage, from which a staircase led to her chamber. She sighed lightly as she entered it, and said to herself, while glancing around her,—
"Always here! Always to see the same things! No one to speak to except Marguerite! She is very good, she loves me very much; but sometimes her stories are very wearisome to me. Well, then, if I must—" and Blanche took up a piece of tapestry which she was making and sang, while working, one of the three airs which her music master had taught her. Soon the door of the room opened; Marguerite had followed the young girl, but did not arrive as soon as she, because her legs had not the vivacity of sixteen years. The old nurse pouted, for Blanche was the cause of her having to change her room, which was no small matter to Marguerite. Blanche perceived it; she ran in front of the old woman, made her sit down, and took her hands, while saying to her with a calming smile,—
"Are you vexed with me, nurse? You must have seen that I said all that without thinking that there was anything wrong in it."
Who could resist Blanche's smile? The old woman was much more sensitive to such sweet manners because people rarely used them with her; and that is why sometimes an old man loses his reason when a pretty girl casts a tender glance at him, because for a long time he has not been in the habit of receiving such glances.