friendship. I accordingly made my way to the heart of a study, where
everything was covered with a dust which bore witness to the lofty
abstraction of the scholar. But a surprise was in store for me there.
I perceived a pretty woman seated on the arm of an easy chair, as if
mounted on an English horse; her face took on the look of conventional
surprise worn by mistresses of the house towards those they do not
know, but she did not disguise the expression of annoyance which, at
my appearance, clouded her countenance with the thought that I was
aware how ill-timed was my presence. My master, doubtless absorbed in
an equation, had not yet raised his head; I therefore waved my right
hand towards the young lady, like a fish moving his fin, and on tiptoe
I retired with a mysterious smile which might be translated "I will
not be the one to prevent him committing an act of infidelity to
Urania." She nodded her head with one of those sudden gestures whose
graceful vivacity is not to be translated into words.

"My good friend, don't go away," cried the geometrician. "This is my
wife!"

I bowed for the second time!--Oh, Coulon! Why wert thou not present to
applaud the only one of thy pupils who understood from that moment the
expression, "anacreontic," as applied to a bow?--The effect must have
been very overwhelming; for Madame the Professoress, as the Germans
say, rose hurriedly as if to go, making me a slight bow which seemed
to say: "Adorable!----" Her husband stopped her, saying:

"Don't go, my child, this is one of my pupils."

The young woman bent her head towards the scholar as a bird perched on
a bough stretches its neck to pick up a seed.