attracted by her, and, as was but natural,
had tried to make her acquaintance, and had
succeeded. But, from what Pierre told me,
I should not think that even this much
thought passed through Morin's mind. He
seems to have been a man of rare and
concentrated attachments; violent, though
restrained and undemonstrative passions; and,
above all, a capability of jealousy, of which
his dark oriental complexion must have been
a type. I could fancy that if he had married
Virginie, he would have coined his life-blood
for luxuries to make her happy; would have
watched over and petted her, at every sacrifice
to himself, as long as she would have
been content to live for him alone. But, as
Pierre expressed it to me: ' When I saw
what my cousin was, when I learned his
nature too late, I perceived that he would
have strangled a bird if she whom he loved
was attracted by it from him.'

"When Pierre had told Morin of his
discovery, Morin sate down, as I have said, quite
suddenly, as if he had been shot. He found
out that the first meeting between the
Norman and Virginie was no accidental,
isolated circumstance. Pierre was torturing
him with his accounts of daily rendezvous: if
but for a moment, they were seeing each
other every day, sometimes twice a day!
And Virginie could speak to this man, though
to himself she was so coy and reserved as
hardly to utter a sentence. Pierre caught
these broken words as his cousin's complexion
grew more and more livid, and then purple,
as if some great effect were produced on his
circulation by the news he had just heard.
Pierre was so startled by his cousin's wandering,
senseless eyes, and otherwise disordered
look, that he rushed into a neighbouring
cabaret for a glass of absinthe, which he
paid for, as he recollected afterwards, with a
portion of Virginie's five francs. By-and-by,
Morin recovered his natural appearance; but
he was gloomy and silent; and all that Pierre
could get out of him was, that the Norman
farmer should not sleep another night at the
Hôtel Duguesclin, giving him such opportunities
of passing and repassing by the
conciergerie door. He was too much absorbed
in his own thoughts to repay Pierre the half-
franc he had spent on the absinthe, which
Pierre perceived, and seems to have noted
down in the ledger of his mind as on
Virginie's balance of favour.

"Altogether, he was so much disappointed
at his cousin's mode of receiving intelligence,
which the lad thought worth another
five-franc piece at least; or, if not paid for in
money, to be paid for in open-mouthed
confidence and expression of feeling, that he was
for a time, so far a partisan of Virginie's—
unconscious Virginie—against his cousin as
to feel regret when the Norman returned no
more to his night's lodging, and when
Virginie's eager watch at the crevice of the
closely-drawn blind ended only with a sigh
of disappointment. If it had not been for
his mother's presence at the time, Pierre
thought he should have told her all. But
how far his mother was in his cousin's
confidence as regarded the dismissal of the
Norman!

"But, in a few days, Pierre felt almost
sure that they had established some new
means of communication. Virginie went out
for a short time every day; but, though
Pierre followed her as closely as he could
without exciting her observation, he could
not discover what kind of intercourse she
held with the Norman. She went, in general,
the same short round among the little shops
in the neighbourhood; not entering any, but
stopping at two or three. Pierre afterwards
remembered that she had invariably paused
at the nosegays displayed in a certain
window, and studied them long; but, then,
she stopped and looked at caps, hats, fashions,
confectionery (all of the humble kind common
in that quarter), so how should he have
known that any particular attraction existed
among the flowers? Morin came more
regularly than ever to his aunt's; but Virginie
was apparently unconscious that she was the
attraction. She looked healthier and more
hopeful than she had done for months, and
her manners to all were gentler and not so
reserved. Almost as if she wished to show
her gratitude to Madame Babette for her
long continuance of a kindness, the necessity
for which was nearly ended, Virginie showed
an unusual alacrity in rendering the old
woman any little service in her power, and
evidently tried to respond to Monsieur
Morin's civilities, he being Madame Babette's
nephew, with the soft graciousness which
must have made one of her principal charms;
for all who knew her speak of the fascination
of her manners, so winning and attentive to
others, while yet her opinions, and often her
actions, were of so decided a character. For,
as I have said, her beauty was by no means
great; yet every man who came near her
seems to have fallen into the sphere of her
influence. Monsieur Morin was deeper than
ever in love with her during this last few
days; he was worked up into a state capable
of any sacrifice, either of himself or others, so
that he might obtain her at last. He sate
' devouring with his eyes ' (to use Pierre's
expression) whenever she could not see his
looks; but, if she looked towards him, he
looked to the ground—anywhere—away from
her, and almost stammered in his replies if
she addressed any question to him.'

"He had been, I should think, ashamed of
his extreme agitation on the Boulevards, for
Pierre thought that he absolutely shunned him
for these few succeeding days. He must
have believed that he had driven the Norman
(my poor Clément!) off the field, by banishing
him from his inn; and thought that the
intercourse between him and Virginie, which
he had thus interrupted, was of so slight and