"No, thank you, Mr. Robeenson." He bowed in his stately manner and turned away to the refreshment-rooms with Laura, leaving the lawyer on the platform, still grinning his contentment.
As they distanced him the child gave a sigh: "I'm so glad he's gone!"
"Why, then, did you not like him, ma mie?"
"No, mon père, not at all; he doesn't look good."
"I think the bébé is right," he said in a low tone; "mais que faut il faire?—Little wise one," he continued aloud, "we must take the people as we find them, some good and some bad, making our own use of them all. Is that too hard a philosophy for the little brain?"
Apparently it was, for the child made no answer.
In the mean time L'Estrange had seated her at one of the marble-topped tables, and before thinking about his own dinner was trying to find out what would best suit her appetite. The well-feed waiter was flying about to supply all her wants; dainty after dainty, which she scarcely touched, was put upon her plate. It was such a new scene to Laura that her appetite fled with the excitement.
Many looked at her curiously in the crowded room, for Laura was a peculiarly beautiful child. Her golden curls and her dark, lustrous eyes, with the transparent delicacy of complexion she had inherited from her mother, and the childish grace which is the gift of God to her age of helplessness, made her very attractive. She was rather embarrassed at the attention she excited, noticing which her protector stood up and folding his arms looked right and left so haughtily that the most compassionate and least curious of the many beholders felt as if their admiration of the fair child had been an indiscretion.
After dinner the wearied little one fell asleep in his arms, and only awoke to find herself in the train, which was far on its way to Southampton. She was getting accustomed to her new friend and to these sudden wakings; so this time, to his great relief, she did not cry out for her mamma, but clung to him still more closely. They stopped at Southampton. It was a lovely night, the sea still as glass and the dark blue sky alight with moonshine and studded with stars.
Laura and her protector stood together on the steamer's deck. "Will ma fillette go to bed?" he asked.