"No, Madame."
"You have no mother?"
As she put the question Madame Evans' voice softened.
"No, Madame."
"What is your father?"
"A bookbinder, Madame"—and the bookbinder's son blushed as he gave the answer. At that moment he would gladly have consented never to see his father more, his father whom he loved, if by the sacrifice he could have passed for the son of a Captain in the Navy or a Secretary of Embassy. He suddenly remembered that one of his fellow-pupils was the son of a celebrated physician whose portrait was displayed in the stationers' windows.
If only he had had a father like that to tell Madame Ewans of!
But that was out of the question—and how cruelly unjust it was!
He felt ashamed of himself, as if he had said something shocking.
But his friend's mother seemed quite unaffected by the dreadful avowal. She was still moving her hands at random up and down the keyboard. Then presently:
"You must enjoy yourself finely to-day, boys," she cried. "We will all go out. Shall I take you to the fair at Saint-Cloud?"
Yes, Edgar was all for going, because of the roundabouts.