“My father, my sister—Madame Grandjean.”
The conversation was turning on children and the ailments which give mothers so much worry when Miss Smithson, an English governess, appeared with a little boy clinging to her hand. Madame Deberle scolded her in English for having kept them waiting.
“Ah! here’s my little Lucien!” exclaimed Pauline as she dropped on her knees before the child, with a great rustling of skirts.
“Now, now, leave him alone!” said Juliette. “Come here, Lucien; come and say good-day to this little lady.”
The boy came forward very sheepishly. He was no more than seven years old, fat and dumpy, and dressed as coquettishly as a doll. As he saw that they were all looking at him with smiles, he stopped short, and surveyed Jeanne, his blue eyes wide open with astonishment.
“Go on!” urged his mother.
He turned his eyes questioningly on her and advanced a step, evincing all the sullenness peculiar to lads of his age, his head lowered, his thick lips pouting, and his eyebrows bent into a growing frown. Jeanne must have frightened him with the serious look she wore standing there in her black dress. She had not ceased holding her mother’s hand, and was nervously pressing her fingers on the bare part of the arm between the sleeve and glove. With head lowered she awaited Lucien’s approach uneasily, like a young and timid savage, ready to fly from his caress. But a gentle push from her mother prompted her to step forward.
“Little lady, you will have to kiss him first,” Madame Deberle said laughingly. “Ladies always have to begin with him. Oh! the little stupid.”
“Kiss him, Jeanne,” urged Hélène.
The child looked up at her mother; and then, as if conquered by the bashful looks of the little noodle, seized with sudden pity as she gazed on his good-natured face, so dreadfully confused—she smiled divinely. A sudden wave of hidden tenderness rose within her and brightened her features, and she whispered: “Willingly, mamma!”