"Two months! Oh, poor little boy. At your age how is it that you happen to be left all alone?"
"It has to be, madam."
"Does your father make you take him a sum of money at the end of two months? Is that it?"
"No, madam, he does not force me to do anything. If I can make enough to live with my animals, that is all."
"And do you manage to get enough?"
I hesitated before replying. I felt a kind of awe, a reverence for this beautiful lady. Yet she talked to me so kindly and her voice was so sweet, that I decided to tell her the truth. There was no reason why I should not. Then I told her how Vitalis and I had been parted, that he had gone to prison because he had defended me, and how since he had gone I had been unable to make any money.
While I was talking, Arthur was playing with the dogs, but he was listening to what I said.
"Then how hungry you all must be!" he cried.
At this word, which the animals well knew, the dogs began to bark and Pretty-Heart rubbed his stomach vigorously.