we began to think her presence necessary.  That scruple was soon done away with, for it laid too great a tax on her, and restricted our attentions very much.  The result was, we passed nearly the whole day beside him; Mary Leighton and Henrietta very often of the party, and Sophie occasionally looking in upon us.  Sometimes when Charlotte Benson, as ranking officer, decreed that the patient needed rest, we took our books and work and went to the piazza, outside the window of his room.

He would have been very tired of us, if he had not been very much in love with one of us.  As it was, it must have been a kind of fool’s paradise in which he lived, five pretty women fluttering about him, offering the prettiest homage, and one of them the woman for whom, wisely or foolishly, rightly or wrongly, he had conceived so violent a passion.

As soon as he was out of pain and began to recover the tone of his nerves at all, I saw that he wanted me beside him more than ever, and that Charlotte Benson, with all her skill and cleverness, was as nothing to him in comparison.  No doubt he dissembled this with care; and was very graceful and very grateful and infinitely interesting.  His moods were very varying, however; sometimes he seemed struggling with the most unconquerable depression, then we were all so sorry for him; sometimes he was excited and brilliant; then we were all thrilled with admiration.  And not unfrequently he was irritable and quite morose and sullen.  And then we pitied, and admired, and feared him a la fois.  I am sure no man more fitted to command the love and admiration of women ever lived.

Charlotte Benson with great self-devotion had insisted upon teaching the children for two hours every day, so that Mr. Langenau might not be annoyed at the thought that they were losing time, and that Sophie might not be inconvenienced.  It was the least that she could do, she reasoned, after the many lessons that Mr. Langenau had given us, with so much kindness, and without accepting a return.  Henrietta volunteered for the service, also, and from eleven to one every day the boys were caught and caged, and made to drink at the fountain of learning; or rather to approach that fountain, of which forty Charlottes and Henriettas could not have made them drink.

At that time Charlotte always decreed that Mr. Langenau should lie on the sofa and go to sleep.  The windows were darkened, and the room was cleared of visitors.  On this Friday morning, nearly two weeks after the accident, as I was following Sophie from the room (Charlotte having gone with Henrietta to capture the children), Mr. Langenau called after me rather imperiously, “Miss d’Estree—­Miss Pauline—­”

It had been a stormy session, and I turned back with misgivings.  Sophie shrugged her shoulders and went away toward the dining-room.

“What are you going away for, may I ask?” he said, as I appeared before him humbly.