"She must know before
anybody," said Sophie; and the professor, as he rubbed his spectacles,
grunted in approval.
But Bressant chewed his mustache, and said, hastily, the blood reddening
his face: "No, no! wait--wait till she comes back. She can know it
first, still; but you had better tell her with words. You can see, with
your own eyes, then, how--how it pleases her."
"Yes, that is true," said Sophie, half reluctantly. "Well?"
Bressant lay silent, with a peering, concentrated look in his eyes, his
brows slightly contracted. He must have had an intuitive foreboding that
this matter of the two sisters would cause some difficulty, but he could
hardly as yet have had a distinct understanding of what jealousy meant.
Howbeit, the lovers grew every day more intimate. In the earlier days of
her intercourse with him Sophie had felt an involuntary shrinking from
she knew not what, but this had been entirely overcome, partly by habit,
partly from an unconscious resolve on her part not to yield to it. The
quick, intelligent sympathy of her nature discerned and interpreted the
germs of new ideas and impulses which were struggling into life in
Bressant's mind; she translated to him his better part, and warmed it
with a flood of celestial sunshine.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232