“I am not conscious of you, monsieur, or of any other having excited such emotion as you indicate,” was my answer; and in giving it, I again surpassed my usual self, and achieved a neat, frosty falsehood. “But what did I say?” he pursued; “tell me: I was angry: I have forgotten my words; what were they?” “Such as it is best to forget!” said I, still quite calm and chill. “Then it was _my_ words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid: permit my retractation; accord my pardon.” “I am not angry, Monsieur.” “Then you are worse than angry—grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy.” “M. Emanuel, I _do_ forgive you.” “Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that alien tone, ‘Mon ami, je vous pardonne.’” He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his simplicity, his earnestness? “Bon!” he cried. “Voilà que le jour va poindre! Dites donc, mon ami.” “Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne.” “I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe you sincere: another effort—_mon ami_, or else in English,—my friend!” Now, “my friend” had rather another sound and significancy than “_mon ami_;” it did not breathe the same sense of domestic and intimate affection; “_mon ami_” I could _not_ say to M. Paul; “my friend,” I could, and did say without difficulty. This distinction existed not for him, however, and he was quite satisfied with the English phrase. He smiled. You should have seen him smile, reader; and you should have marked the difference between his countenance now, and that he wore half an hour ago. I cannot affirm that I had ever witnessed the smile of pleasure, or content, or kindness round M. Paul’s lips, or in his eyes before. The ironic, the sarcastic, the disdainful, the passionately exultant, I had hundreds of times seen him express by what he called a smile, but any illuminated sign of milder or warmer feelings struck me as wholly new in his visage. It changed it as from a mask to a face: the deep lines left his features; the very complexion seemed clearer and fresher; that swart, sallow, southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood, became displaced by a lighter hue. I know not that I have ever seen in any other human face an equal metamorphosis from a similar cause. He now took me to the carriage: at the same moment M. de Bassompierre came out with his niece.