Arlette observed her gravely and pondered. “You, too, shall be his wife, mademoiselle,” she said.
“Ah ... it seems I was wrong. After all, little Arlette is not wholly American.”
The dinner was finished and Ken carried little Arlette into the salon on his shoulder. She cuddled between him and Andree on the sofa, insisted upon holding his hand, and looked at Andree with calculating eye.
“Have you no new chansons, petite?” asked Ken.
“Oui, monsieur.” And she stood up with a most serious air, taking her position just so and smoothing down her skirts. Then she tilted up her little chin and, with her eyes fixed gravely on Ken’s face, she sang a song of many verses while her grandmother stood in the door and bobbed and grinned and made signs of a great satisfaction.... It was not like a child singing, Ken thought, but like some playfellow of elves and fairies. There were about her a daintiness, an ethereal quality, a purity which was something more than merely human and of the flesh.... He wondered what life held for her; wondered if Andree might not have been just such a child with just such characteristics as she. He thought it possible ... for Andree retained some of those characteristics even now.
He lifted the child in his arms and kissed her, and Arlette took her away.
“You must come often,” Ken said, “because we are to be married.”
“Yes, monsieur. That is understood.... It was America of the North, was it not?”
“It was.”
“I shall remember.... Bon soir, monsieur. Bon soir, mademoiselle.” And she was gone.