“Well, the child was adopted and brought up in the family.  She grew, and the years flew by.  She was so gentle and loving and minded so well that every one would have spoiled her abominably had not my mother prevented it.

“My mother was an orderly woman with a great respect for class distinctions.  She consented to treat little Claire as she did her own sons, but, nevertheless, she wished the distance which separated us to be well marked, and our positions well established.  Therefore, as soon as the child could understand, she acquainted her with her story and gently, even tenderly, impressed on the little one’s mind that, for the Chantals, she was an adopted daughter, taken in, but, nevertheless, a stranger.  Claire understood the situation with peculiar intelligence and with surprising instinct; she knew how to take the place which was allotted her, and to keep it with so much tact, gracefulness and gentleness that she often brought tears to my father’s eyes.  My mother herself was often moved by the passionate gratitude and timid devotion of this dainty and loving little creature that she began calling her:  ‘My daughter.’  At times, when the little one had done something kind and good, my mother would raise her spectacles on her forehead, a thing which always indicated emotion with her, and she would repeat:  ’This child is a pearl, a perfect pearl!’ This name stuck to the little Claire, who became and remained for us Mademoiselle Pearl.”

II

M. Chantal stopped.  He was sitting on the edge of the billiard table, his feet hanging, and was playing with a ball with his left hand, while with his right he crumpled a rag which served to rub the chalk marks from the slate.  A little red in the face, his voice thick, he was talking away to himself now, lost in his memories, gently drifting through the old scenes and events which awoke in his mind, just as we walk through old family gardens where we were brought up and where each tree, each walk, each hedge reminds us of some occurrence.

I stood opposite him leaning against the wall, my hands resting on my idle cue.

After a slight pause he continued: 

“By Jove!  She was pretty at eighteen—­and graceful—­and
perfect.  Ah!  She was so sweet—­and good and true—­and charming! 
She had such eyes—­blue-transparent—­clear—­such eyes as
I have never seen since!”

He was once more silent.  I asked:  “Why did she never marry?”

He answered, not to me, but to the word “marry” which had caught his ear:  “Why? why?  She never would—­she never would!  She had a dowry of thirty thousand francs, and she received several offers—­but she never would!  She seemed sad at that time.  That was when I married my cousin, little Charlotte, my wife, to whom I had been engaged for six years.”

I looked at M. Chantal, and it seemed to me that I was looking into his very soul, and I was suddenly witnessing one of those humble and cruel tragedies of honest, straightforward, blameless hearts, one of those secret tragedies known to no one, not even the silent and resigned victims.  A rash curiosity suddenly impelled me to exclaim: