So the crisis was approaching!
But though yesterday I myself had been thinking of putting Aimee on her guard, now I no longer wanted him to go and warn her.
So much the worse for her!
I felt malicious and greedy for excitement this morning and I deliberately set out to keep Antonin at my side.
Nothing could be simpler: it was enough to open my eyes innocently wide and to droop my head so that my hair fell loose all about my face.
He swallowed the bait at once.
‘Sir, do please tell me if it’s true that you write charming verses?
I’ve heard people in the town say so.’
It was a lie, of course. But I’d have invented anything to stop him from going upstairs to the schoolmistresses.
He blushed and stammered, overcome with delight and surprise:
‘Who could have told you? … But no … no … I certainly don’t deserve … It’s extraordinary, I didn’t think I’d ever mentioned it to a soul!’
‘You see how fame has betrayed your modesty! (I should begin to talk like him in a minute.) Would it be indiscreet to ask you …’
‘I entreat you, Mademoiselle … you see me utterly confused … All I could offer you to read would be some humble poems, amorous … but chaste! (He spluttered.) I should never, naturally have dared to allow myself …’
‘Sir, isn’t the bell ringing for the boys to come in to class over on your side?’
If only he’d go away, if only he’d go away!
In a moment Aimee would come down, he would warn her, she would be on her guard and we shouldn’t see a thing!
‘Yes … but it isn’t time yet. It’s those fiendish urchins hanging on to the chain … you can’t leave them a second!
And my colleague still hasn’t come.
Ah, it’s harrd work being all on one’s own to keep an eye on everything!’
No one can say he isn’t frank!
This method of ‘keeping an eye on everything’ which consists in coming and saying sweet nothings to the big girls can’t exhaust him unduly.
‘You see, Mademoiselle, I shall have to go and be severe.
But Mademoiselle Lanthenay …’
‘Oh, you can always tell her at eleven o’clock, if her fiance’s still absent … which would surprise me!
Perhaps he’ll be coming back any minute now?’
Oh, for goodness’ sake go and be severe, you great blundering oaf!
You’ve bowed enough and smiled enough; be off with you, vanish!
At long last, he did.
The lanky Anais, rather vexed at the master’s lack of attention to her, disclosed to me that he was in love with me.
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘Come on, let’s finish our game. It’s more fun than talking insane nonsense.’
The game ended while the others were arriving and the teachers were coming down at the last moment.
Those two never let each other out of sight!
That little horror of an Aimee was lavishing girlish wiles on the Redhead.
We went into class and Mademoiselle Sergent left us in the hands of her favourite who asked us the results of the problems set the day before.
‘Anais, to the blackboard.
Read out the terms of the problem.’
It was a fairly complicated problem but the lanky Anais, who is gifted for arithmetic, moved with remarkable ease among mail-coaches, watch-hands, and proportional shares.
Then – horror! – it was my turn.
‘Claudine, to the blackboard.
Extract the square root of two million, seventy-three thousand, six hundred and twenty.’
I professed an intolerable loathing for those little things you have to extract.
And, as Mademoiselle Sergent wasn’t there, I suddenly decided to play a trick on my ex-friend; she had only herself to blame, the fickle wretch!
I hoisted the standard of rebellion.
Standing in front of the blackboard, I shook my head and said gently:
‘No.’ ‘What do you mean, no?’
‘No, I don’t want to extract roots today.
It doesn’t appeal to me.’
‘Claudine, have you gone mad?’
‘I don’t know, Mademoiselle.