So that is how these big-wigs employ their leisure moments! The library where I found them was full of book cases-open bookcases, bookcases with glass doors, tall bookcases, dwarf bookcases, bookcases standing on legs, bookcases standing on the floor--of statuettes yellow with smoke, of desks crowded with paper-weights, paper-knives, pens, and inkstands of "artistic" pat terns.

He was seated at the table, with his back to the fire, his arm lifted, and a hairpin between his finger and thumb--the pivot round which his paper twist was spinning briskly.
Across the table stood his daughter, leaning forward with her chin on her hands and her white teeth showing as she laughed for laughing's sake, to give play to her young spirits and gladden her old father's heart as he gazed on her, delighted.
I must confess it made a pretty picture; and M.Charnot at that moment was extremely unlike the M.Charnot who had confronted me from behind the desk.
I was not left long to contemplate.
The moment I lifted the 'portiere' the girl jumped up briskly and regarded me with a touch of haughtiness, meant, I think, to hide a slight confusion.

To compare small things with great, Diana must have worn something of that look at sight of Actaeon.

M.Charnot did not rise, but hearing somebody enter, turned half-round in his armchair, while his eyes, still dazzled with the lamplight, sought the intruder in the partial shadow of the room.
I felt myself doubly uneasy in the presence of this reader of the Early Text and of this laughing girl.
"Sir," I began, "I owe you an apology--" He recognized me.

The girl moved a step.
"Stay, Jeanne, stay.