“For instance, in the mornings, when he goes off to the _lycée_ with the others, I lean out of my window to see him go by. He knows I do.... Well, he never turns round.” I wanted to explain to him that no doubt Boris was afraid of making a spectacle of himself before his schoolfellows and dreaded being laughed at; but at that moment a clamour arose from the courtyard below. La Pérouse seized me by the arm and, in an altered, agitated voice: “Listen! Listen!” he cried, “they are coming in.” I looked at him. He had begun to tremble all over. “Do the little wretches frighten you?” I asked. “No, no,” he said in some confusion; “how could you think such a thing?...” Then, very quickly: “I must go down. Recreation only lasts a few minutes and you know I take preparation. Good-bye. Good-bye.” He darted into the passage, without even shaking my hand. A moment later I heard him stumbling downstairs. I stayed for a few moments to listen, as I had no wish to go past the boys. I could hear them shouting, laughing and singing. Then a bell rang and silence was abruptly restored. I went to see Azaïs and obtained permission for George to leave school in order to come and speak to me. He soon joined me in the same small room in which La Pérouse had received me a little while before. As soon as he was in my presence, George thought fit to assume a jocular air. It was his way of concealing his embarrassment. But I wouldn’t swear that he was the more embarrassed of the two. He was on the defensive; for no doubt he expected to be sermonized. He seemed trying as hastily as possible to lay hold of anything he could use as a weapon against me, for, before I had opened my mouth, he enquired after Olivier, in such a bantering tone of voice, that I should have had the greatest pleasure in boxing his ears. He was in a position to score off me. His ironical eyes, the mocking curl of his lips all seemed to say: “I’m not afraid of you, you know.” I at once lost all my self-assurance and my one anxiety was to conceal the fact. The speech I had prepared suddenly struck me as inappropriate. I had not the prestige necessary to play the censor. At bottom, George amused me too much. “I have not come to scold you,” I said at last; “I only want to warn you.” (And, in spite of myself, my whole face was smiling.) “Tell me first whether it’s Mamma who has sent you?” “Yes and no. I have spoken about you to your mother; but that was some days ago. Yesterday I had a very important conversation about you with a very important person, whom you don’t know. He came to see me on purpose to talk about you. A _juge d’instruction_. It’s from him I’ve come. Do you know what a _juge d’instruction_ is?” George had turned suddenly pale, and no doubt his heart had stopped beating for a moment. He shrugged his shoulders, it is true, but his voice trembled a little: “Oh! all right! Out with it! What did old Profitendieu say?”