Vous--comprenez, n'est ce pas?"
He laughed heartily.
"Yes, your point reaches me," he said, "but sperat et in saeva
victus gladiatur arena, as the old Latin poet wisely remarks." The
quotation was meant to tease her.
"Yes, Montaigne translated that or something in his book," she
commented with prompt erudition. "I understand it."
Beverley looked amazed.
"What do you know about Montaigne?" he demanded with a blunt
brevity amounting to something like gruffness.
"Sh', Monsieur, not too loud," she softly protested, looking
around to see that neither Madame Roussillon nor Jean had followed
them into the main room. "It is not permitted that I read that old
book; but they do not hide it from me, because they think I can't
make out its dreadful spelling."
She smiled so that her cheeks drew their dimples deep into the
delicately tinted pink-and-brown, where wind and sun and wholesome
exercise had set the seal of absolute health, and took from a
niche in the logs of the wall a stained and dog-eared volume. He
looked, and it was, indeed, the old saint and sinner, Montaigne.
Involuntarily he ran his eyes over the girl from head to foot,
comparing her show of knowledge with the outward badges of abject
rusticity, and even wildness, with which she was covered.
"Well," he said, "you are a mystery."
"You think it surprising that I can read a book! Frankly I can't
understand half of this one.
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