But they are strong and I am weak, how could I deny them since they put me here.

After all," he concluded naively, "perhaps it is the will of le bon Dieu, and He knows best, my child, He knows best." The shoes evidently refused to respond any further to the old man's efforts at polishing them.

He contemplated them now, with a whimsical look of regret on his furrowed face, then set them down on the floor and slipped his stockinged feet into them.
Marguerite was silently watching him, still leaning on her elbow.
Evidently her brain was still numb and fatigued, for she did not seem able to grasp all that the old man said.

She smiled to herself too as she watched him.

How could she look upon him as a jailer?
He did not seem at all like a Jacobin or a Terrorist, there was nothing of the dissatisfied democrat, of the snarling anarchist ready to lend his hand to any act of ferocity directed against a so-called aristocrat, about this pathetic little figure in the ragged soutane and worn shoes.
He seemed singularly bashful too and ill at ease, and loath to meet Marguerite's great, ardent eyes, which were fixed questioningly upon him.
"You must forgive me, my daughter," he said shyly, "for concluding my toilet before you.