Page:Madame Rolland (Blind 1886).djvu/61

Rh the highest principles; but whether she really liked it, those must decide who understand a woman's heart.

Months thus elapsed, and the lovers saw and heard nothing of each other. Preoccupied though Manon was, she used to enjoy walking out on a Sunday afternoon with her father, and on one such occasion she diverted herself in the Tuileries Gardens by inwardly criticising every person they passed, for she was, as she sometimes accused herself, something of a quiz. Amongst a group of ladies she caught sight of one, however, who struck her as so pretty and charming that she could find no fault with her. Suddenly she saw her father bowing to someone, and behold! by the side of this very pretty lady she caught sight of Lablancherie, who, while meeting her smile of surprise, from deep respect cast down his eyes. She was pleased at this unexpected meeting—or professed herself pleased. But a month afterwards, on walking in the Luxembourg with a lady friend, she again encountered him; and this time the grave, philosophic, love-sick Lablancherie was actually seen walking with an ostrich feather in his hat! (Then the height of fashion.)

"My poor heart," she writes to Sophie, "has been greatly perplexed and fatigued of late in consequence of a number of insignificant little events. Imagine that I have met D. L—b—e: that he wore a feather in his hat. Ah! you cannot imagine how this cursed little feather has tormented me. I have turned and twisted in every direction to reconcile so futile an ornament with that high philosophy, that rigid simplicity of taste, that noble way of thinking, which have endeared him to me. I can only see excuses, and am feeling cruelly what great significance little