Her anger made her more beautiful than ever, and I was stupid enough to tell her so.

She hates a compliment, you know." "Indeed, I have never tried her with one." Alphonse looked at me with grave surprise.
"It is a good thing," he said, "that you do not love her.

Name of God! where should I be ?" "But it is with Madame and not Mademoiselle Lucille that we shall have to do this afternoon," I said hastily.
Although he was more or less acknowledged as an aspirant to Lucille's hand, Giraud refused to come within the door when we reached the Hotel Clericy.
"No," he answered; "they will not want to see me at such a time.

It is only when people want to laugh that I am required." I found Madame quite calm, and all her thoughts were for Lucille.

The more a man is brought into contact with maternal love, even if it bear in no way upon his own life, the better he will be for it--for this is surely the loftiest of human feelings.
My own mother having died when I was but an infant, it had never been my lot to live in intimacy with women, until fate guided me to the Hotel Clericy.
At no time had I felt such respect for that quiet woman, Madame de Clericy, as on this afternoon when widowhood first cast its sable veil over her.
"Lucille," she said at once, "must not be allowed to grieve for me.
She has her own sorrow to bear, for she loved her father dearly.