Dr.John wrote harmless prescriptions for the patient, and viewed her mother with a shrewdly sparkling eye.

Madame caught his rallying looks without resenting them--she had too much good sense for that.

Supple as the young doctor seemed, one could not despise him--this pliant part was evidently not adopted in the design to curry favour with his employer: while he liked his office at the pensionnat, and lingered strangely about the Rue Fossette, he was independent, almost careless in his carriage there; and yet, too, he was often thoughtful and preoccupied.
It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing, or search out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly help it.

He laid himself open to my observation, according to my presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what is given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary joiner's work, and carpets of no striking pattern.

Often, while waiting for Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man who thinks himself alone.