“Nicette,” he murmured, so that the child should not hear him, “I refuse, you know, to accept this responsibility. It is your own consciousness of justification, or otherwise, that is in question. The mother had a human as well as a divine side. I will use you for the first.”
“Use me!” she whispered. “Monsieur——”
She drooped her head—tried to withdraw her hands. Her lips faltered desperately on the word.
“Tell me the truth, little Nicette. May not a saint love guava jelly? It is a fruit of the sweet earth—perhaps the very manna of the Israelites.”
He held her young soft wrists in hostage for an answer—much concerned for an exchange of confidence. The girl, making a lac d’amour of her fingers, suddenly came to her decision.
“I am very wicked,” she said in a small voice, between eagerness and tears; “I am not a saint at all. Monsieur may do with me as he will.”
Now surely this young man had the fairy Temperance to his godmother when he was christened. His point gained, he disposed his model with a very pretty eye to business, and was soon at work.
“Nicette,” said he, “how has this youthful whipper-snapper misconducted himself?”
“Baptiste, monsieur? He was dainty with his food; and—the day was hot, and perhaps I was ever so little cross.”
She accepted the understanding, it will be seen—thrilled perhaps over the secret ecstasy implied in this prospect of a lay confessor.