“And I also,” I said.  “But why despair?  Are there no aged peers?”

“You are an apt scholar, Louise!” he exclaimed.

Then he left me, smiling and kissing my hand.

I received your letter this very morning, and it led me to contemplate that abyss into which you say that I may fall.  A voice within seemed to utter the same warning.  So I took my precautions.  Henarez, my dear, dares to look at me, and his eyes are disquieting.  They inspire me with what I can only call an unreasoning dread.  Such a man ought no more to be looked at than a frog; he is ugly and fascinating.

For two days I have been hesitating whether to tell my father point-blank that I want no more Spanish lessons and have Henarez sent about his business.  But in spite of all my brave resolutions, I feel that the horrible sensation which comes over me when I see that man has become necessary to me.  I say to myself, “Once more, and then I will speak.”

His voice, my dear, is sweetly thrilling; his speaking is just like la Fodor’s singing.  His manners are simple, entirely free from affectation.  And what teeth!

Just now, as he was leaving, he seemed to divine the interest I take in him, and made a gesture—­oh! most respectfully—­as though to take my hand and kiss it; then checked himself, apparently terrified at his own boldness and the chasm he had been on the point of bridging.  There was the merest suggestion of all this, but I understood it and smiled, for nothing is more pathetic than to see the frank impulse of an inferior checking itself abashed.  The love of a plebeian for a girl of noble birth implies such courage!

My smile emboldened him.  The poor fellow looked blindly about for his hat; he seemed determined not to find it, and I handed it to him with perfect gravity.  His eyes were wet with unshed tears.  It was a mere passing moment, yet a world of facts and ideas were contained in it.  We understood each other so well that, on a sudden, I held out my hand for him to kiss.

Possibly this was equivalent to telling him that love might bridge the interval between us.  Well, I cannot tell what moved me to do it.  Griffith had her back turned as I proudly extended my little white paw.  I felt the fire of his lips, tempered by two big tears.  Oh! my love, I lay in my armchair, nerveless, dreamy.  I was happy, and I cannot explain to you how or why.  What I felt only a poet could express.  My condescension, which fills me with shame now, seemed to me then something to be proud of; he had fascinated me, that is my one excuse.

Friday.

This man is really very handsome.  He talks admirably, and has remarkable intellectual power.  My dear, he is a very Bossuet in force and persuasiveness when he explains the mechanism, not only of the Spanish tongue, but also of human thought and of all language.  His mother tongue seems to be French.  When I expressed surprise at this, he replied that he came to France when quite a boy, following the King of Spain to Valencay.