If, in the hush of meditation, they
sometimes use their power to observe and recognize that which goes on
around them, they are satisfied with having divined its meaning; their
occupations hurry them on, and they frequently make false application
of the knowledge they have acquired about the things of life.
Sometimes they wake from their social apathy, or they drop from the
world of thought to the world of life; at such times they come with
well-stored memories, and are by no means strangers to what is
happening.
Balthazar, who joined the perspicacity of the heart to that of the
brain, knew his daughter's whole past; he knew, or he had guessed, the
history of the hidden love that united her with Emmanuel: he now
showed this delicately, and sanctioned their affection by taking part
in it. It was the sweetest flattery a father could bestow, and the
lovers were unable to resist it. The evening passed delightfully,
--contrasting with the griefs which threatened the lives of these poor
children. When Balthazar retired, after, as we may say, filling his
family with light and bathing them with tenderness, Emmanuel de Solis,
who had shown some embarrassment of manner, took from his pockets
three thousand ducats in gold, the possession of which he had feared
to betray. He placed them on the work-table, where Marguerite covered
them with some linen she was mending; and then he went to his own
house to fetch the rest of the money.
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