“I? No! I have a brother and two sisters—in America. Parents, none. They are dead.”
“And you wander about the world—” she said.
He looked at her, and made a slight, sad gesture, indifferent also.
“But you have Madame for a mother,” she said.
He made another gesture this time: pressed down the corners of his mouth as if he didn’t like it. Then he turned with the slow, fine smile.
“Does a man want two mothers? Eh?” he said, as if he posed a conundrum.
“I shouldn’t think so,” laughed Alvina.
He glanced at her to see what she meant, what she understood.
“My mother is dead, see!” he said. “Frenchwomen—Frenchwomen—they have their babies till they are a hundred—”
“What do you mean?” said Alvina, laughing.