"Yes," replied Anne. "But M. de Soucy could not go," he volunteered, and contributed the reason. The lady, however, did not appear to be in the least interested in the Vicomte de Soucy, indeed she scarcely seemed to hear. She looked as if she were seeing something a long way off.
"My child," she said at last, bringing back her gaze to him, "you remember the gentleman who fetched you back from France in the spring?"
A quiver went through Anne-Hilarion. "Oh yes," he replied.
"I must ask," said the lady to herself; "I cannot wait." She looked hungrily at the little figure with the cart, her hands gripping each other, and as Anne had averted his head she did not see how the young roses had faded from his cheeks. "Anne," she said, finding her voice with difficulty, "has he come back—the Chevalier de la Vireville?"
Anne-Hilarion shook his head, and then, collapsing on to the grass, put his curls down on the unyielding neck of his toy horse and burst into tears.
The lady covered her own face for a moment with her hands, the next, she was kneeling beside him in her black draperies. "Mon petit, don't cry so—don't, don't, you break my heart!"
But Anne sobbed on as if his own heart were breaking, till the zebra-like stripes on the little horse were all sticky with the tokens of his grief.
"Dear little boy," said the lady beseechingly, putting her arms round him. "I should not have asked you—I ought not to have mentioned him." Her own voice was by no means steady.
"He said," gulped Anne, without raising his head, "that he would be my uncle . . . in England too. But he has never come back . . . and I want him. . . ."
"Oh, Anne, so do I!" said the lady. "But don't cry so, darling! Perhaps he will come back one day. Let me wipe your face . . . look!"