vision caused him an unspeakable yet delicious pain--Gabrielle
in a loose _peignoir_ at a small, daintily ordered table gay
with flowers and glasses. He saw it all quite clearly; his gaze
searched every fold of the soft material that covered her bosom
and rose and fell at each breath she drew. Face and neck and
lively hands had a surprisingly brilliant yet so natural a sheen
that they exhaled amorous invitation as if they had been verily
of flesh and blood. The superb moulding of the lips, pouting
like a ripe mulberry, and the exquisite grain of the skin were
manifest--treasures such as men risk death and crime to win.
It was the actress, in fine, seen by the two eyes which of all
eyes in the whole world had learned to see her best. She was not
alone; a man was looking at her with a penetrating intensity as
he filled her glass. They were straining one towards the other.
Jean could not restrain his sobs. Suddenly he seemed to be falling
from the top of a high tower. The Superintendent of Studies was
standing in front of him and saying:

"Monsieur Servien, will you see about punishing that boy Laboriette,
who is emptying his leavings in his neighbour's pocket?"




XXIII

The Superintendent, with his large, flat face and the sly ways
of a peasant turned monk, was a constant thorn in Jean's side.
"_Be firm, be firm, sir_," was his parable every day, and
he never missed an opportunity of doing the usher an ill turn