As for M. Linders, this little conversation left him alarmed,
perplexed, uneasy. What if, after all, this small being whom
he had proposed to identify, as it were, with himself, by
teaching her to see with his eyes, to apprehend with his
understanding, what if she were beginning to develop an
independent soul, to have thoughts, notions, ideas of her own,
perhaps, to look out into life with eager eyes that would
penetrate beyond the narrow horizon it had pleased him to fix
as her range of vision, to ask questions whose answers might
lead to awkward conclusions? For the moment it seemed to him
that his whole system of education, which had worked so well
hitherto, was beginning to totter, ready at any time, it might
be, to fall into ruins, leaving him and his child vainly
calling to each other across an ever-widening, impassable
gulf. Already he foresaw as possible results all that he had
most wished to avoid, and felt himself powerless to avert
them; for, however ready to alienate her from good influences,
and expose her to bad ones, he yet shrank from inculcating
falsehood and wrong by precept.
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