Page:Villette.djvu/246

Rh The very coachman went wrong, somehow, and we lost our way".

"You don't say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe"

"I assure you it is fact—and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would not stay in the carriage; he broke from us, and would ride outside".

"And afterwards?"

"Afterwards—when he did reach home—the scene transcends description".

"Oh, but describe it—you know it is such fun!"

"Fun for you, Miss Fanshawe; but" (with stern gravity) you know the proverb—'What is sport to one may be death to another'".

"Go on, there's a darling Timon".

"Conscientiously, I can not, unless you assure me you have some heart".

"I have—such an immensity, you don't know!"

"Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton rejecting his supper in the first instance—the chicken, the sweet-bread prepared for his refreshment left on the table untouched. Thenbut it is of no use dwelling at length on the harrowing details. Suffice it to say, that never, in the most stormy fits and moments of his infancy, had his mother such work to tuck the sheets about him as she had that night".

"He wouldn't lie still?"

"He wouldn't lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in, but the thing was to keep them tucked in".

"And what did he say?"

"Say! Can't you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra, anathematizing that demon, de Hamal—raving about golden locks, blue eyes, white arms, glittering bracelets?"

"No, did he? He saw the bracelet?"

"Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it, and, perhaps, for the first time, he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has encircled your arm. Ginevra" (rising, and changing my tone), "come, we will have an end of this. Go away to your practicing". And I opened the door.

"But you have not told me all".