“No, not very. It used to be much better.”
“In what way?”
“That’s easy to answer. Sonia and I used to learn only music and reading before, but now we have French verses, too. You have cut your beard!”
“Yes.”
“So I noticed. It is shorter than it was. Please let me touch it—does that hurt?”
“No, not a bit.”
“Why does it hurt if you pull one hair at a time, and not a bit if you pull lots? Ha! Ha! I’ll tell you something. You ought to wear whiskers! You could shave here on the sides, here, and here you could let the hair grow——”
The boy nestled close to Belayeff and began to play with his watch-chain.
“Mamma is going to give me a watch when I go to school, and I am going to ask her to give me a chain just like yours—Oh, what a lovely locket! Papa has a locket just like that; only yours has little stripes on it, and papa’s has letters. He has a portrait of mamma in his locket. Papa wears another watch-chain now made of ribbon.”
“How do you know? Do you ever see your papa?”