Page:Villette.djvu/421

414 "Lucy", said M. Paul, speaking low, and still holding my hand, "did you see a picture in the boudoir of the old house?"

"I did; a picture painted on a panel".

"The portrait of a nun?"

"Yes".

"You heard her history?"

"Yes".

"You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?"

"I shall never forget it".

"You did not connect the two ideas; that would be folly?"

"I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait"; said I; which was true enough.

"You did not, nor will you fancy", pursued he, "that a saint in Heaven perturbs herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely superstitious; these morbid fancies will not beset you?"

"I know not what to think of this matter; but I believe a perfectly natural solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at".

"Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good living woman—much less a pure, happy spirit—would trouble amity like ours—n'est-il pas vrai?"

Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out that I was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some English family, who had applied for a prospectus: my services were needed as interpreter. The interruption was not unseasonable: sufficient for the day is always the evil; for this hour, its good sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul whether the "morbid fancies", against which he warned me, wrought in his own brain.