“I think they look very nice,” said Lucie, “and see, they are smiling at you. I think they are smiling at you because you are talking to me.”
Paul’s head went down still lower on his book, and his face burned crimson. Lucie, with great self-possession, got up from the bench, and, making a pretty little bow to Monsieur and Madame Verney, skipped off back to Harper.
Monsieur Verney, a pleasant-faced man of fifty, prodded Paul with his cane.
“What charming young lady was that, my son, with whom you were speaking?”
“Mademoiselle Lucie Bernard,” Paul managed to articulate.
“And a very pretty little thing she is!” said Madame Verney, who was, herself, pretty and pleasant-looking, sitting down on the bench, and putting Paul’s blushing face upon her shoulder. “For shame, Charles, to tease the boy so!”
Paul hid his face on his mother’s shoulder, meanwhile screwing up his courage to its ultimate point. Then, raising his head, and looking his father directly in the eye, Paul said:
“When I grow up, I mean to marry Mademoiselle Lucie.”
The boy’s clear blue eyes looked directly into his father’s, which were also clear and blue, and between the boy and the man a look of sympathy, of understanding, passed. His father might laugh at him, but Paul knew that it was only a joke, after all, and as long as he behaved himself, no unkind word would be spoken to him by that excellent father.