see anything which was going on in the courtyard; indeed, she never once
looked that way, but went on daintily watering plant after plant,
picking off dead leaves, crumpling them up in her fingers and throwing
them down as if she were alone in the place; singing, too, softly in a
low tone snatches of a song, the words of which went floating away
tantalizingly over Willan's head, in spite of all his efforts to hear.

It was a great tribute to Victorine's powers as an actress that it never
once crossed Willan's mind that she could possibly know he was looking
at her all this time. It was equally a token of another man's estimate
of her, that when old Benoit, hearing the singing, looked up and saw her
watering her flowers at this unexampled hour, he said under his breath,
"Diable!" and then glancing at the face of Willan, who stood gazing up
at the window utterly unconscious of the old ostler's presence, said
"Diable!" again, but this time with a broad and amused smile.



III.


The fountain leaps as if its nearest goal
Were sky, and shines as if its life were light.
No crystal prism flashes on our sight
Such radiant splendor of the rainbow's whole
Of color. Who would dream the fountain stole
Its tints, and if the sun no more were bright
Would instant fade to its own pallid white?
Who dream that never higher than the dole
Of its own source, its stream may rise?