“She did not tell me.... She would have been here,” continued Madame Gigon. Then, as if her brain were fatigued by the strain of speaking English, the old woman addressed a torrent of French to the little boy. When she had finished he advanced to Ellen, shyly, and held out his hand.
“She says,” he repeated in the same piping voice, “that I must welcome you as master of the house. She says you are my cousin.” He smiled gravely. “I never had a cousin before. And,” he continued, “she says that if Maman had known she would have been here.”
He stood regarding her with a look of fascination as though so strange and exotic a thing as a cousin was too thrilling to be passed over lightly. Touched by the simplicity of the child, Ellen drew him near to her and, addressing both him and Madame Gigon, said, “You are good to believe that I am Madame Shane’s cousin. How could you know?”
Madame Gigon smiled shrewdly. She was withered and had a little black mustache. Again the boy translated her speech. “She says,” he repeated, “that you have ... une voix honnête.” He hesitated.... “An honest voice ... and that she knows the voice because she taught my mother in school and before her my grandmère. She says it is like my grandmère’s voice.”
As he spoke the old woman smiled again and wagged her head with extraordinary vigor. “Je connais la voix.... Je la connais bien.”
Then she addressed the boy again and he translated her speech. “She says she is blind and will you come near so that she may touch your face?”
Ellen drew her chair closer so that it disturbed the fatter of the two dogs and allowed Madam Gigon to pass her thin hands in a fluttering gesture over her handsome throat and the fine arch of her nose.
“Ah,” said the old woman triumphantly. “Le nez ... the nose.... C’est le nez de vôtre tante ... le même nez ... précisement. C’est un nez fier ... distingué.”
“It is a proud nose,” echoed the interpreter gravely.... “A high distinguished nose.... A nose like your aunt’s.”
And the old woman, wagging her head, fell suddenly into a silent train of old memories.