Who would teach that heart to feel again?  Who turn to quivering flesh that rigid marble?  Yet the man of iron sat masking his features, controlling his emotions, with every muscle under his command.  It was a flash of real feeling from a proud, sensitive woman, but it passed lightly as a snowdrift on a frozen river.

CHAPTER IV.

“Mr. Reed, you certainly are the most old-maidish man I ever saw in my life.”

The room did appear old-maidish, as Mademoiselle Milan stood looking in.  The balmy breeze fluttered pleasantly past the little French curtains, the glowing sunshine warmed the delicate tracery of the walls and lighted up the flowers on a huge rug spread on the bare floor.  A tiny bouquet of Spanish violets, in a wonderful little vase, filled the room with a dreamy perfume, such as one sometimes imagines he would find in those far-off little islands in the South seas.  There were crayon sketches hung between the windows, here and there a statuette filled a niche, and out on the glass-floored gallery was a perfect bower of flowers.  There were several easy-chairs placed about in comfortable positions, as if they were all made to sit on, and a great lounge, covered with green marine, stood, like a small grass-mound, under one of the windows.

Percy Reed, seated near a table loaded with needle-books, silk-winders, and a hundred little trinkets, with a cigar in his mouth, and a sock, with a little round gourd shoved into the foot of it, in his hand, was intently occupied in darning a hole in the toe.

“There! don’t throw away your cigar. Mon Dieu! can a person never see you without being overpowered at your grand politeness?”

“Mademoiselle, I make no apologies.  Buttons will come off, and stockings will contract holes.  Washer-women are heartless.  The mountain will not come to Mahomet:  therefore I darn ’em myself.”

“A philosopher under all circumstances.  And pray what have you done with your pupil in morality and economy?”

“Oh, Dupleisis?  I have started him out in a carriage to view the wonders of this ‘River of January.’  By-the-by, if you ever hope to attract, don’t dream of mentioning figures in the presence of our mysterious Frenchman.”

“Why?”

“The branch of mathematics known as simple addition seems to be the crowning glory of his intellect.  He knows to a milreis the value of this building, from chimney-pot to cellar.”

“Blessed with curiosity,” said Mademoiselle, significantly.

“Mathematics entirely.  If Armand Dupleisis were entering the pearly gates of Paradise, amid the resounding hallelujahs of cherubim and seraphim, he would deliberately count the cost of the entire wardrobe, before he thought of receiving the waters of eternal life.”

“Mr. Reed,” said Mademoiselle, earnestly, “who did you ever see of whom you could not speak lightly?”