“Do you know where she is?”
“In her usual place I’ll wager, perched upon the cloister wall, waiting for some adventure to come to pass—an apparition of angels, or the arrival of a knight on horseback. Wait a little: perhaps I can persuade her to come.”
M. Mairieux returned with the fugitive, whom he had succeeded in taming. The grandfather and grandchild had no doubt come to understand one another by their walks in the forest together. I looked more closely at the child, of whom I had barely caught a glimpse on my first visit. Her hair, golden at the ends of the curls, paler blond on her head, fell unconfined far down her back. She was small and slight with legs and arms of no size at all, and yet her slightest motion revealed the easy play, the facile grace of the swift runner. Her dark eyes, at once limpid and deep, like still water pools, encircled by shade, the transparency of which serves no purpose, were wide open, and far too shy for the eyes of a child. Had her mother transmitted to her some of that mysterious fear that haunted her?
I paid systematic court to this little girl of six and a half years. At coffee she handed me sugar, remembered to remove my empty cup, and shortly after she was perched upon my knee. Proud indeed I was of the conquest.
“It is surprising,” remarked Mme. Mairieux, somewhat disconcerted by the importance which I attached to the incident.
But her husband was unreservedly delighted with my attentions to Dilette. As for Dilette, she would not go to bed. Only a scolding could detach her from the place to which I had enchained her with stories.
“You’ll tell me some more, won’t you, Sir?”
“Surely.”
“Stories with afraid in them?”
We parted the best friends in the world.