I then set my mind on the profession of schoolmaster." "Emile Grenat was a brave boy.

Has he no regrets ?" "Neither of us has a regret." "He began ambitiously." "It's the way at the beginning." "It is not usually abjured." "I'm afraid we neither of us 'dignify our calling' by discontent with it!" A dusky flash, worth seeing, came on her cheeks.

"I respect enthusiasms," she said; and it was as good to him to hear as the begging pardon, though clearly she could not understand enthusiasm for the schoolmaster's career.
Light of evidence was before him, that she had a friendly curiosity to know what things had led to their new meeting under these conditions.
He sketched them cursorily; there was little to tell--little, that is; appealing to a romantic mind for interest.

Aware of it, by sympathy, he degraded the narrative to a flatness about as cheering as a suburban London Sunday's promenade.

Sympathy caused the perverseness.