“Oh, please don’t make me regret accepting your kindness.”
“I’ll say no more.... With the corner of a clean handkerchief ... I see it.... Good heavens! Don’t be frightened! Look up! There it is!”
And Anthime, with the corner of the handkerchief, removed an infinitesimal speck of dust.
“Thank you! Thank you! I should like to be left alone now. I’ve a frightful headache.”
While Marguerite was resting and Julius unpacking with the maid and Veronica looking after the dinner, Anthime took charge of Julie and led her off to his room. His niece, whom he had left as a tiny child, was hardly recognisable in this tall girl, whose smile had become grave as well as ingenuous. After a little, as he was holding her close to his knee, talking such childish trivialities as he hoped might please her, his eye was caught by a thin silver chain which the child was wearing round her neck. “Medallions!” his instinct told him. An indiscreet jerk of his big forefinger brought them into sight outside her bodice, and, hiding his morbid repugnance under a show of astonishment:
“What are these little things?” he asked.
Julie understood well enough that the question was not a serious one, but why should she take offence?
“What, uncle? Have you never seen any medallions before?”
“Not I, my dear,” he lied; “they aren’t exactly pretty pretty, but I suppose they’re of some use?”
And as even the serenest piety is not inconsistent with innocent playfulness, the child pointed with her finger to a photograph of herself, which she had caught sight of propped up against the glass over the mantelpiece, and said: