I longed to linger, but dared not.  Having laid the parcel down upon the nearest chair, there was nothing left for me to do but to take my leave.  Mademoiselle Dufresnoy still kept her hand upon the door.

“Accept my best thanks, sir,” she said in English, with a pretty foreign accent, that seemed to give new music to the dear familiar tongue.

“You have nothing to thank me for, Mademoiselle,” I replied.

She smiled, proudly still, but very sweetly, and closed the door upon me.

I went back to my room; it had become suddenly dark and desolate.  I tried to read; but all subjects seemed alike tedious and unprofitable.  I could fix my attention to nothing; and so, becoming restless, I went out again, and wandered about the dusky streets till evening fairly set in, and the shops were lighted, and the tide of passers-by began to flow faster in the direction of boulevard and theatre.

The soft light of her shaded lamp streamed from her window when I came back, nor faded thence till two hours after midnight.  I watched it all the long evening, stealing out from time to time upon my balcony, which adjoined her own, and welcoming the cool night air upon my brow.  For I was fevered and disquieted, I knew not why, and my heart was stirred within me, strangely and sweetly.

Such was my first meeting with Hortense Dufresnoy.  No incident of it has since faded from my memory.  Brief as it was, it had already turned all the current of my life.  I had fallen in love at first sight.  Yes—­in love; for love it was—­real, passionate, earnest; a love destined to be the master-passion of all my future years.

CHAPTER XLI.

A CHRONICLE ABOUT FROISSART.

     See, Lucius, here’s the book I sought for so! 
     JULIUS CAESAR.

     But all be that he was a philosophre,
     Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre,
     But all that he might of his frends hente,
     On bokes and on lerning he is spente.

CHAUCER. &/

“LOVE-IN-IDLENESS” has passed into a proverb, and lovers, somehow, are not generally supposed to be industrious.  I, however, worked none the less zealously for being in love.  I applied only the more closely to my studies, both medical and literary, and made better progress in both than I had made before.  I was not ambitious; but I had many incentives to work.  I was anxious to satisfy my father.  I earnestly desired to efface every unfavorable impression from the mind of Dr. Cheron, and to gain, if possible, his esteem.  I was proud of the friendship of Madame de Courcelles, and wished to prove the value that I placed upon her good opinion.  Above all, I had a true and passionate love of learning—­not that love which leadeth on to fame; but rather that self-abandoning devotion which exchangeth willingly the world of action for the world of books, and, for an uninterrupted communion with the “souls of all that men held wise,” bartereth away the society of the living.