But Elizabeth had no notion of being debarred from what she regarded as an innocent diversion, by any hints Miss Baring might drop. She talked, with unembarrassed spontaneity, across the table; her lips twitched at the poet's affectations, his paradoxes, his foamings at the mouth. She regarded him much as certain men are regarded by an indulgent public in England: men whose superficial cleverness and puerile vanity entertain for an hour, and are forgotten; or, if not forgotten, are only remembered with a disparaging smile.
But there was to be an end to this indulgence; and the end was precipitated thus.
Elizabeth sat in her room late one night, writing her journal, before going to bed, when she was startled by a gentle knock at her door. It was locked; but she sprang up, and was about to open it, when she stopped short.
"Who is there?" she asked.
"It is I," replied Doucet's voice, in a whisper.
"What do you want?"
"I am very thirsty. Have you, mademoiselle, some water to give me?"
There stood a bottle on the table before her eyes. A few weeks since—before she fled from her uncle's house—she would assuredly have opened the door, and bade the young man quench his thirst. Though still singularly fearless, and too contemptuous to be seriously suspicious of M. Anatole, Hatty's warning possibly crossed her mind, as she replied—
"No. I have no water to give you, monsieur. You will find some downstairs."
"You are very cruel. If you knew what I am suffering!"
