"But, Mademoiselle, what harm can the most ill-natured of human critics discover——"
"Oh, but listen to me. I begin to fear I have been wrong in talking to you as I have done; and if so, you ought not to have presented yourself to me as you did. I have reflected on it since. In fact, I don't know who you are, Monsieur Dubois. The Charrebourgs do not use to make companions of everybody; and you may be a roturier, for anything I can tell."
Monsieur Dubois smiled again.
"I see you laugh because we are poor," she said, with a heightened color and a flashing glance.
"Mademoiselle misunderstands me. I am incapable of that. There is no point at which ridicule can approach the family of Charrebourg."
"That is true, sir," she said, haughtily; and she added, "and on that account I need not inquire wherefore people smile. But this seems plain to me—that I have done very wrong in conversing alone with a gentleman of whom I know nothing beyond his name. You must think so yourself, though you will not say it; and as you profess your willingness to oblige me, I have only to ask that all these foolish conversations may be quite forgotten between us. And now the petit pannier is filled, and it is time that I should return. Good evening, Monsieur Dubois—farewell."
"This is scarcely a kind farewell, considering that we have been good friends, Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, for so long."
"Good friends—yes—for a long time; but you know," she continued, with a sad, wise shake of her pretty head, "I ought not to allow gentlemen whom I chance to meet here to be my friends—is it not so? This has only struck me recently, Monsieur Dubois; and I am sure you used to think me very strange. But I have no one to advise me; I have no mother—she is dead; and the Visconte seldom speaks to me; and so I fear I often do strange things without intending; and—and I have told you all this, because I should be sorry you thought ill of me, Monsieur Dubois."
She dropped her eyes for a moment to the ground, with an expression at once very serious and regretful.
"Then am I condemned to be henceforward a stranger to dear Mademoiselle de Charrebourg?"