'Why not?' she replied, with an air of candid astonishment. 'Do you really think I cannot get up early? Why, when I go and visit my poor I am up and dressed at eight.' And in what a tone of voice it was that she said this! A pleasant, modest tone--like that in which a hero would tell of something extraordinary he had done without seeing anything in it himself--the tone in which an officer would say, 'As we were charging the enemy!' The joke of it was that she had never ventured even to set her foot in a poor man's dwelling. She had as great a horror of poverty as of sickness or of old age, and to her selfish nature charity was a thing almost unknown. But at that moment René would have looked upon anyone who dared charge her with selfishness as guilty of the most infamous blasphemy. After having uttered her well-chosen words this novel Sister of Mercy stopped for a moment in order to enjoy their effect. In René's eyes shone that look of blind faith which these pretty hypocrites are so accustomed to regard as their due that they charge all who refuse it them with heartlessness. Then, as if to evade an admiration that embarrassed her modesty, she went on, 'You forget that you are my guide to-day. I will pretend I know nothing of any of these pictures; I shall then be able to see whether we have the same tastes.' '_Mon Dieu!_' thought René, 'I must take care not to show her anything that might give her a bad opinion of me!' The most commonplace women can, when they choose, inspire a man who is vastly superior to them with this sensation of utter inferiority.