So thinking,
he followed his patrons to the Chalet that evening, with a cloud of
care upon his brow: for he knew it was most important to hide from all
these watchful eyes and ears the net, whatever it might be, in which
he should entrap his lady. It would have to be, he thought, by some
intercepted glance, some sudden start or quiver, as when a surgeon
lays his finger on a hidden sore. That evening Gobenheim did not
appear, and Butscha was Dumay's partner against Monsieur and Madame
Latournelle. During the few moment's of Modeste's absence, about nine
o'clock, to prepare for her mother's bedtime, Madame Mignon and her
friends spoke openly to one another; but the poor clerk, depressed by
the conviction of Modeste's love, which had now seized upon him as
upon the rest, seemed as remote from the discussion as Gobenheim had
been the night before.
"Well, what's the matter with you, Butscha?" cried Madame Latournelle;
"one would really think you hadn't a friend in the world."
Tears shone in the eyes of the poor fellow, who was the son of a
Swedish sailor, and whose mother was dead.
"I have no one in the world but you," he answered with a troubled
voice; "and your compassion is so much a part of your religion that I
can never lose it--and I will never deserve to lose it.
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