of the day when Virginie had gone out for the first time after so many
months' confinement to the conciergerie, he was struck with the
improvement in her appearance. It seems to have hardly been that he
thought her beauty greater: for, in addition to the fact that she was not
beautiful, Morin had arrived at that point of being enamoured when it
does not signify whether the beloved one is plain or handsome--she has
enchanted one pair of eyes, which henceforward see her through their own
medium. But Morin noticed the faint increase of colour and light in her
countenance. It was as though she had broken through her thick cloud of
hopeless sorrow, and was dawning forth into a happier life. And so,
whereas during her grief, he had revered and respected it even to a point
of silent sympathy, now that she was gladdened, his heart rose on the
wings of strengthened hopes. Even in the dreary monotony of this
existence in his Aunt Babette's conciergerie, Time had not failed in his
work, and now, perhaps, soon he might humbly strive to help Time. The
very next day he returned--on some pretence of business--to the Hotel
Duguesclin, and made his aunt's room, rather than his aunt herself, a
present of roses and geraniums tied up in a bouquet with a tricolor
ribbon. Virginie was in the room, sitting at the coarse sewing she liked
to do for Madame Babette. He saw her eyes brighten at the sight of the
flowers: she asked his aunt to let her arrange them; he saw her untie the
ribbon, and with a gesture of dislike, throw it on the ground, and give
it a kick with her little foot, and even in this girlish manner of
insulting his dearest prejudices, he found something to admire.

"As he was coming out, Pierre stopped him. The lad had been trying to
arrest his cousin's attention by futile grimaces and signs played off
behind Virginie's back: but Monsieur Morin saw nothing but Mademoiselle
Cannes. However, Pierre was not to be baffled, and Monsieur Morin found
him in waiting just outside the threshold. With his finger on his lips,