The latter raised her eyes slowly, and locked at the Jesuit.  At sight of that cadaverous countenance, which was smiling benignantly upon her, the young girl started.  It was strange! she had never seen this man, and yet she felt instantly the same fear and repulsion that he had felt with regard to her.  Generally timid and confused, the work-girl could not withdraw her eyes from Rodin’s; her heart beat violently, as at the coming of some great danger, and, as the excellent creature feared only for those she loved, she approached Adrienne involuntarily, keeping her eyes fixed on Rodin.  The Jesuit was too good a physiognomist not to perceive the formidable impression he had made, and he felt an increase of his instinctive aversion for the sempstress.  Instead of casting down his eyes, he appeared to examine her with such sustained attention, that Mdlle. de Cardoville was astonished at it.

“I beg your pardon, my dear girl,” said Rodin, as if recalling his recollections, and addressing himself to Mother Bunch, “I beg your pardon—­but I think—­if I am not deceived—­did you not go a few days since to St. Mary’s Convent, hard by?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No doubt, it was you.  Where then was my head?” cried Rodin.  “It was you—­I should have guessed it sooner.”

“Of what do you speak, sir?” asked Adrienne.

“Oh! you are right, my dear young lady,” said Rodin, pointing to the hunchback.  “She has indeed a noble heart, such as we seek.  If you knew with what dignity, with what courage this poor girl, who was out of work and, for her, to want work is to want everything—­if you knew, I say, with what dignity she rejected the shameful wages that the superior of the convent was unprincipled enough to offer, on condition of her acting as a spy in a family where it was proposed to place her.”

“Oh, that is infamous!” cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, with disgust.  “Such a proposal to this poor girl—­to her!”

“Madame,” said Mother Bunch, bitterly, “I had no work, I was poor, they did not know me—­and they thought they might propose anything to the likes of me.”

“And I tell you,” said Rodin, “that it was a double baseness on the part of the superior, to offer such temptation to misery, and it was doubly noble in you to refuse.”

“Sir,” said the sewing-girl, with modest embarrassment.

“Oh!  I am not to be intimidated,” resumed Rod in.  “Praise or blame, I speak out roughly what I think.  Ask this dear young lady,” he added, with a glance at Adrienne.  “I tell you plainly, that I think as well of you as she does herself.”

“Believe me, dear,” said Adrienne, “there are some sorts of praise which honor, recompense, and encourage; and M. Rodin’s is of the number.  I know it,—­yes, I know it.”

“Nay, my dear young lady, you must not ascribe to me all the honor of this judgment.”

“How so, sir?”

“Is not this dear girl the adopted sister of Agricola Baudoin, the gallant workman, the energetic and popular poet?  Is not the affection of such a man the best of guarantees, and does it not enable us to judge, as it were, by the label?” added Rodin, with a smile.