“I have been out of town,” he began.
“So I heard.”
“Have you been well all this time?”
He noticed that she was somewhat pale, that she had a light blue shadow under her eyes and that there was lassitude in all her movements. But he came to the conclusion that there was nothing extraordinary in this, or that perhaps she merely looked pale in the creamy whiteness of her soft, white dress, like silky wool, even as her figure became yet slighter in the constraint of the scarf about her waist, with its long white fringe falling to her feet. She was sitting alone with Christie, the child upon his footstool with his head in her lap and a picture-book on his knees.
“You two are a perfect Madonna and Child,” said Quaerts.
“Little Dolf has gone out to walk with his god-father,” she said, looking fondly upon her child and motioning to him gently.
At this bidding the boy stood up and shyly approached Quaerts, offering him a hand. Quaerts lifted him up and set him on his knee:
“How light he is!”
“He is not strong,” said Cecile.