"I will not say that I have dropped him." As she spoke she was aware that Adrian looked keenly, inquiringly at her. And this displeased her, as an intrusion upon her liberty of action. "M. Dax has a charming devotion to my little Bette," she continued. "No one whom I know is so perfect a playfellow to children. His sympathy with them is extraordinary. He understands their tastes and pleasures, and is unwearied in his kindness to them. Only, perhaps, his games are a little overstimulating, overexciting. After his last visit my poor Bette suffered from agitating dreams and awoke in the night frightened and crying. I had difficulty in soothing her."
"Praiseworthy babe, how profoundly right are her instincts!" Miss Beauchamp declared, fervently. "But, Heaven help us, what's this!" she added, under her breath. "Perfidious infant, how these praiseworthy babies can fool one!"
She nodded and beckoned to Adrian, still speaking under her breath.
"As you value my friendship, don't go, on no account go, my dear Savage. Come and sit here by me and tell me about your time in England. Like the chivalrous young man you are, stick to me. Supply me with a valid excuse for remaining. For, manners or no manners, I am resolved not to leave her alone with that depraved little horror. I am resolved to outstay him."
CHAPTER III
A STRAINING OF FRIENDSHIP
Bette, light-footed, sprightly, in beaver cap, pelisse, and muff, brown cloth gaiters and boots to match, her face pink from air and exercise, her eyes wide and bright with consciousness of temerity, spricketed toward her mother, leading René Dax by the hand.
"I found him outside in the courtyard as I returned from my walk with my little friends," she piped, the words tumbling over one another in her pretty haste. "He told me that he wished so much to see us, but that he never found us at home now. And he looked unhappy. You have always instructed me that it is our duty to console the unhappy. So I informed him that I knew you were at home to-day, because you would not leave my grandmother, and I assured him that, speaking in your name, it would give us much pleasure to receive him. And then I invited him to come up-stairs with me. And that was all quite proper, wasn't it, mamma, because we do not like him to be unhappy, and it does give us pleasure to receive M. Dax, does it not?"
"Assuredly it gives us pleasure to receive M. Dax," Gabrielle said, her head carried high and a just perceptible ring of defiance in her voice.
She smiled graciously upon the young man, and for an instant the three stood hand in hand—René Dax, the Tadpole, offering the very strangest of connecting links between the beautiful mother and delicious little girl.