He obligingly essayed to hug himself by way of illustration, and I nodded my comprehension.
"You will doubtless miss her when she leaves you?"
He twisted his features as from a sudden pain.
"I can't sink of zat, m'sieu. She have bene wiz me t'ree—four—five weeks; she is one—headstron' chil', but she make me vair happy—oui."
He sank a little deeper in his soft chair, and pulled contentedly at his long-stemmed pipe.
It was hard for me to broach the subject uppermost in my mind. Twice my lips parted to open the discussion, but each time the sentence which followed related to an entirely different matter. So for quite a while we talked of the weather, the crops, the parish, and it was while we were discussing the neighborhood that I knew my opportunity had arrived.
"I have become very much interested in the family at Lizard Point. You know them well?"
"Vair well. Madame is vair releegious; a good woman. M'sieu is—is—indeef'rent; ma'm'selle—ah, ze young ma'm'selle!"
Again his spread hands went out expressively, and he shook his head with wrinkled forehead.
Inwardly I smiled, but outwardly my face was set to decorous lines.