She did not even turn round, so engrossed was her attention with the pastel which she was at the moment rapidly sketching in with broad strokes of the crayon. Near her in a vase bloomed a stalk of hollyhocks of a singular shade of violet, striped with yellow. But the profile of her small round head, with its short, fair hair, was clearly distinguishable; an exquisite and serious profile, the straight forehead contracted in a frown of attention, the eyes of an azure blue, the nose delicately molded, the chin firm. Her bent neck, especially, of a milky whiteness, looked adorably youthful under the gold of the clustering curls. In her long black blouse she seemed very tall, with her slight figure, slender throat, and flexible form, the flexible slenderness of the divine figures of the Renaissance. In spite of her twenty-five years, she still retained a childlike air and looked hardly eighteen. “And,” resumed the doctor, “you will arrange the press a little. Nothing can be found there any longer.” “Very well, master,” she repeated, without raising her head; “presently.” Pascal had turned round to seat himself at his desk, at the other end of the room, before the window to the left. It was a plain black wooden table, and was littered also with papers and pamphlets of all sorts. And silence again reigned in the peaceful semi-obscurity, contrasting with the overpowering glare outside. The vast apartment, a dozen meters long and six wide, had, in addition to the press, only two bookcases, filled with books. Antique chairs of various kinds stood around in disorder, while for sole adornment, along the walls, hung with an old _salon_ Empire paper of a rose pattern, were nailed pastels of flowers of strange coloring dimly visible. The woodwork of three folding-doors, the door opening on the hall and two others at opposite ends of the apartment, the one leading to the doctor’s room, the other to that of the young girl, as well as the cornice of the smoke-darkened ceiling, dated from the time of Louis XV. An hour passed without a sound, without a breath. Then Pascal, who, as a diversion from his work, had opened a newspaper—_Le Temps_—which had lain forgotten on the table, uttered a slight exclamation: “Why! your father has been appointed editor of the _Époque_, the prosperous republican journal which has the publishing of the papers of the Tuileries.” This news must have been unexpected by him, for he laughed frankly, at once pleased and saddened, and in an undertone he continued: “My word! If things had been invented, they could not have been finer. Life is a strange thing. This is a very interesting article.”