“Now,” he admitted to himself, “Jacques Bonhomme is simply awaking to knowledge of the fact that he may boast a family-tree as thick-hung as his lord’s with evil fruit, and that he was not spawned of the mud because no record exists of his grandfather.”
By-and-by, strolling down a little court, he turned into a wine-shop for a draught to his dusty throat. He drank his maçon, mixing it with water, in a tiny room off the tap of the auberge; and, while he was drinking, the sound of a low vehement voice in the street brought him to the window.
He looked out. It was his very Madonna of the butterflies, and presented under a new aspect. Her hands were at the neck of the child; she was rating him in voluble viraginian. The poor rogue sobbed and protested; but he would not loose his grip of something of which she strove to possess herself.
“P’tit démon!” she gabbled—“but I will have it, I say! It is no use to weep and struggle. Give it me, Baptiste—ah! but I will!”
“No, no!” cried the boy; “it is mine—it has always been mine. Thou shalt not, Nicette!”
She so far secured the bone of contention as to enable Ned for a moment to recognise its nature. It was a silver medal—a poor devotional charm strung round the infant’s neck. The child by an adroit movement recovered possession. She looked about her, unconscious of the observer, as if, safe from interruption, she would have dared torture and maltreatment. Then suddenly she fell to wheedling.
“Babouin, little babouin, wilt thou not make this sacrifice for thine own loving Nicette, who is so poor, so poor, little babouin, because of the small brother she keeps and feeds and clothes?—wilt thou not?”
“No!” cried the child again, half hysterical. “It is mine—it was blessed by the Holy Father!”
“But the guava, Baptiste! the sweet red jelly in the little box! I have eaten of it once before, and oh! Baptiste, it is like the fruit that tempted the first mother. And it so seldom comes to market, and I have not a sou; and before next wage-day all may be appropriated. Wilt thou not then, mon poulet, mon p’tit poulet?”
But the poulet only repeated his tearful pipe.