I must confess it made a pretty picture; and M. Charnot at that moment was extremely unlike the M. Charnot who had confronted me from behind the desk.

I was not left long to contemplate.

The moment I lifted the ‘portiere’ the girl jumped up briskly and regarded me with a touch of haughtiness, meant, I think, to hide a slight confusion.  To compare small things with great, Diana must have worn something of that look at sight of Actaeon.  M. Charnot did not rise, but hearing somebody enter, turned half-round in his armchair, while his eyes, still dazzled with the lamplight, sought the intruder in the partial shadow of the room.

I felt myself doubly uneasy in the presence of this reader of the Early Text and of this laughing girl.

“Sir,” I began, “I owe you an apology—­”

He recognized me.  The girl moved a step.

“Stay, Jeanne, stay.  We shall not take long.  This gentleman has come to offer an apology.”

This was a cruel beginning.

She thought so, too, perhaps, and withdrew discreetly into a dim corner, near the bookcase at the end of the room.

“I have felt deep regret, sir, for that accident the other day—­I set down the penholder clumsily, in equilibrium—­unstable equilibrium —­besides, I had no notion there was a reader behind the desk.  Of course, if I had been aware, I should—­I should have acted differently.”

M. Charnot allowed me to flounder on with the contemplative satisfaction of an angler who has got a fish at the end of his line.  He seemed to find me so very stupid, that as a matter of fact I became stupid.  And then, there was no answer—­not a word.  Silence, alas! is not the reproof of kings alone.  It does pretty well for everybody.  I stumbled on two or three more phrases quite as flatly infelicitous, and he received them with the same faint smile and the same silence.

To escape from my embarrassment: 

“Sir,” I said, “I came also to ask for a piece of information.”

“I am at your service, sir.”

“Monsieur Flamaran has probably written to you on the matter?”

“Flamaran?”

“Yes, three days ago.”

“I have received no letter; have I, Jeanne?”

“No, father.”

“This is not the first time that my excellent colleague has promised to write a letter and has not written it.  Never mind, sir; your own introduction is sufficient.”

“Sir, I am about to take my doctor’s degree.”

“In arts?”

“No, in law; but I have a bachelor’s degree in arts.”

“You will follow it up with a degree in medicine, no doubt?”

“Really, sir—­”

“Why—­Why not, since you are collecting these things?  You have, then, a bent toward literature?”

“So I have been told.”

“A pronounced inclination—­hey? to scribble verse.”

“Ah, yes!”

“The old story; the family driving a lad into law; his heart leaning toward letters; the Digest open on the table, and the drawers stuffed with verses!  Isn’t that so?”