"Does that surprise you? Is it possible to see the child without loving her? Moreover, as he came again to-day and sat in the same place as yesterday, don't you see that it must have been a desire to see his daughter that brought him there again?" "Oh! if that were true, if it were possible! But if he wishes to see his daughter, does he not know that the doors of this house will fly open before him any day, at any hour? And if it is my presence that offends him, if it is I whom he does not wish to meet, why, I will be careful to avoid his glances, I will conceal myself in the most distant part of the house, and I will stay hidden there so long as he remains. But let him come to see his daughter! let him lavish his caresses on her without fear. I shall be only too happy, and I will not complain." "Of course, monsieur le comte did not know at first," said Ambroisine, "when Blanche attracted his attention, that it was his own daughter whom he was praising; when he learned that fact, he could not help being proud of her; and then the same feeling brought him back to the spot where he knew that she ordinarily came to run about and play. But it is a long way from that to coming to this house." "Oh! no matter; to-morrow Blanche will go out with her nurse at the same time; my daughter will go for her walk in the same direction, to the same benches as to-day; perhaps he will come again to see her; and I will go there with you, Ambroisine. I am strong enough to go out; at all events, you will lend me your arm, and we will keep out of sight, a long way off; but not so far that we cannot see whether the darling girl's father caresses her again." Everything was done the next day as Bathilde had planned. Blanche went out with her nurse as the clock struck twelve; some distance behind, two women walked arm in arm, following with their eyes every step, every movement of the child. But the bench on which they had found Léodgard two days in succession was unoccupied; and more than once the little girl, after running in that direction, returned to her nurse and said in her childish lisp, and in an almost mournful tone: "The gentleman not there, nurse; where is the gentleman?" For Blanche had already come to look upon it as a pleasant custom to be kissed and caressed by Léodgard. Children learn to love very quickly! A person attracts them instantly or never; as they have not become reasoning persons, they follow their first impulse. That day had not the result for which they hoped. Léodgard did not appear at the bench, or in any other part of Place Royale, where Bathilde's and Ambroisine's eyes would not have failed to discover him. On the following day they repeated the same manoeuvre, with no better success. And Blanche, as she returned to the house with her mother, who sighed profoundly, seemed to share her sadness. "Mamma, he did not come--the gentleman!" she said.