'But what does it matter to you what the niece of Don Gregorio raves or does not rave over, I want to know?'
'Because I am paying her attentions,' he said."
This dialogue was word for word what had passed between my mother and myself after I returned from Landereau's shop, so I grew hot with anger.
"At the words _Because I am paying her attentions_," continued the narrator, "Samud's mother was overcome with intense astonishment: her son, whom she still pictured as running about the streets in his long print pinafore, or renewing his baptismal vows taper in hand; her son paying attentions to the beautiful Doña Lorenza!--why, it was one of those absurd things she had never even imagined. And her son, seeing she was unconvinced, drew his hand out of his breast pocket and showed her a bracelet of hair with a mosaic clasp. But he took care to keep it to himself that he had taken this bracelet from Doña Lorenza; she had not given it him, and she was very much distressed at not knowing what had become of it."
Although this account was not very creditable to my honesty, it was dreadfully accurate. I had had that bracelet in my possession for three days; during those three days I had, if not exactly shown it, at least let it be seen by several people, and, among others, by my mother and my cousins the Deviolaines, before whom I posed as a gallant youth; but at length I had been moved by Laure's distress, as she had thought it lost. I gave it back to her, humbly confessing my fault; she forgave me, in consideration, no doubt, of her delight in recovering her trinket, but she would not have let me off so easily had she known my indiscretions.
So the perspiration which had beaded my brow at the beginning of the story, ran down over my face in big drops; yet wishing to learn how far M. Mennesson had been coached in the matter of my sentimental escapades, I had the courage to stay where I was--or rather, I had not the strength to fly. M. Mennesson went on:--
"At this juncture Samud's mother raised her hands and eyes to heaven, and as the poor woman never could refuse her son, she said to him, with a sigh--
'Very well, be it so; if a pair of boots will make you happy, go and order the boots.'