“Margot Selba!” said Gabrielle slowly. “Surely I must have seen her! isn’t that the little brown-eyed one I discovered singing in Louis’ room? Yes, I am sure it must be—her eyes were so frightened, and I remember thinking that brown eyes always show terror so easily. Now, I have never seen blue eyes frightened.” And Madame opened her own a little wider. Jean looked so long at them that Madame had to move her hand to draw his attention back to his work. “What about this little person?” she asked.
“She is in most terrible distress,” said Jean. “She works for her mother and herself. I want you to help me about the account; it’s a very large one, and she can’t pay it. She’s asked for a month’s grace, and if she doesn’t get it she’ll be turned out into the streets of Paris; and, Madame, it seems to me for the lessons she has received from Flaubert altogether too large a sum!”
“Oh, my dear boy, how terrible!” cried Gabrielle quickly. “It seems to me that all girls with voices have to support a mother! I have heard, ah! so many such sad tales, and you believe it all, of course!”
“These are my friends—I know that it is true,” said Jean, simply.
Gabrielle shivered a little.
“Ah! how hard life is!” she murmured. “We sometimes ask God why? But there is never any answer.”
“I knew—I knew that you’d feel like that,” said Jean. “I should have come to you before, there is no one like you in the world for courage and kindness. You’re—you’re so beautiful, Gabrielle!”
This time he knew that she had heard him.
“Hush! Hush, my child!” she said gently. “We must think, mustn’t we? Do you know, years ago when I was first married Torialli’s pupils came to me very often—oh, with such tragic stories! How I cried over them, and I would go to him and tease him to alter the accounts, and he was too good to me—dear old Torialli—he always altered them, and he worked so hard. And then one day he was ill; I shall never forget it. He said to me ‘Little one, I must go on working as hard as I can, because you see my work is cheap.’ And Jean, it was I who had made it so by my foolish woman’s sympathy. I had made my husband’s work cheap! I promised him then, and I have always kept it, never to interfere with his business again.”
“But she isn’t Torialli’s pupil, you know; she’s Flaubert’s,” Jean explained. “And it’s only that I do not feel the account to be fair!—I have said I think it is too much. If it is necessary to pay it—I will try to do so, but it seems to me that Flaubert has asked more than he has earned!”