"Never mind!... He was playing some stupid trick!... He shall be punished if he offends you. See! I am tearing up the ugly picture!"
"Oh, Monseigneur!"
She was too late to save the drawing. He went on, tossing away the bits:
"Meanwhile—since the sketch I meant for you has been given to this person, you shall have my shell-splinter, though at first I meant it for—Cavaignac."
He had never uttered this name, about which so many lonely day-dreams clung, in the hearing of any second person. He could hardly believe that he had done so now as he went on:
"Take my souvenir, and shut your hand over it, and promise me you will never part with it. If you will, I can tell you about Cavaignac—my friend, Mademoiselle!"
She complied with his wish, smiling at the tone of authority. She thought, looking in the beautiful frank blue eyes, that Cavaignac must be proud of his high place in this princely young heart.
"He is brave, Mademoiselle, and handsome and wonderfully clever. Once he gained the second prize for Greek translation at the Concours General. And Greek is horribly difficult. M. Edeline could never teach it me. I find the grammar so dreadfully dull! And yet Alexander the Great was a Greek general, and would have told me all about his campaigns in the Greek language.... I think I must find it hard to study because the figures of people mean more to me than letters and words!... I like better to draw caricatures of my masters than to listen to them!"
Juliette said, with something maternal in her accent:
"That is unwise, Monseigneur.... For the better we learn, the sooner we part with the teacher, do not we?"