That little fact of seeing Therese alone among all those people, vexed him with the Roulleaus. He went there the next morning. Therese saw him on the stairs, and fled back, foolish child, to her room, with a cold fear in her heart of what he might be come to propose. She had remarked his displeasure of the day before, and who knew what might grow out of it? Madame Roulleau used to invent little speeches of M. Deshoulieres, which poor Therese had no reason for disbelieving; she felt them hard,--cruel. Her heart resented this trampling out of the bright things of life which they told her he was trying to force upon her. She liked sunshine, flowers, love,--liked them, and wanted them for herself with an impatience that would not so much as endure the thought of life without them. One feels a compassion for such natures, knowing how hard the lessons of time must prove to them, and yet it may be that their very buoyancy helps them to float over the stormy waves. It was so with Therese at present. She felt more confident of Fabien's love now than she had done when he was near her and talking about it; she never doubted that he would return; she could turn her dingy little room in Rue St Servan into a veritable palace with her bright thoughts of the future. There was a little precious likeness of Fabien which she would take out and talk to whenever Madame Roulleau was more than usually tyrannical. With so much sunshine before her, she could bear any thing so long as that terrible guardian would leave her alone.