"She would do it again, monsieur the marquis," repeated the laugher.
"Were the children rude to you?"
"They mocked him, father." She pulled the boy from behind a grave-stone where he crouched unmoving as a rabbit, and showed him to her guardians. "See how weak he is! Regard him—how he walks in a dream! Look at his swollen wrists—he cannot fight. And if you wish to make these English respect you you have got to fight them!"
"Where is Ernestine? She should not have left you alone."
"Ernestine went to the shops to obey your orders, father."
The boy's dense inertia was undisturbed by what had so agonized the girl. He stood in the English sunshine gazing stupidly at her guardians.
"Who is this boy, Eagle?" exclaimed the younger man.
"He does not talk. He does not tell his name."
The younger man seized the elder's arm and whispered to him.
"No, Philippe, no!" the elder man answered. But they both approached the boy with a deference which surprised Eagle, and examined his scarred eyebrow and his wrists. Suddenly the marquis dropped upon his knees and stripped the stockings down those meager legs. He kissed them, and the swollen ankles, sobbing like a woman. The boy seemed unconscious of this homage. Such exaggeration of her own tenderness made her ask,