CHAPTER XVIII.
A FLANK MOVEMENT.
Bressant was lying comfortably upon his bed with his eyes closed; no one would have imagined there had been any outburst or convulsion of passion in his mental or emotional organism.

He breathed easily; there was a pale tint of red in his cheeks, above his close, brown beard; his forehead was slightly moist, and his pulse, on which the surgeon laid his finger with professional instinct, beat quietly and regularly.

In entering upon the world of love, all marks of wounds received upon the journey seemed to have passed away.
He opened his eyes at the professor's touch, and fixed them upon the old gentleman in such a serene stare of untroubled complacency as one sometimes receives from a baby nine months old.
"Well, sir"-- the professor, from some subtle delicacy of feeling respecting the prospective change in their relationship, adopted this form of address in preference to that more paternal one he had been in the habit of using since Bressant's accident--"well, sir, how do you find yourself now ?" "Much better; I shall soon be well now.

I feel differently from ever before--very light and full here," said the young man, indicating the region of his heart.
"I've seen Sophie," observed Professor Valeyon, after a somewhat long silence, which Bressant, who had calmly closed his eyes again, showed no intention of breaking.
"Sophie and I love each other," responded he, meditatively, and rather to himself than to the father.

The latter could not but feel some surprise at the untroubled confidence the young man's manner displayed.
Before he could put his thought into fitting words, the other spoke again.
"I've been thinking, I should like to marry her." "You'd like to marry her ?" repeated the old gentleman, with a mixture of sternness and astonishment, his forehead reddening.