“No, my child, Chérubin went away of his own free will, in high spirits, in fact, and almost dancing with those little hussies, who twirled round and round longer than the tops my boys used to spin when they were little.”
Louise wept more bitterly still.
“Why did you let those horrid women come into your house?” she cried. “Oh! I detest them!”
“Bless my soul, child, it was one of the gentlemen who brought ‘em; they drank milk just like cats; and then they danced like kids.”
“And Chérubin went away with them!—But he’ll come back to-morrow, won’t he, mother dear?”
“Let us hope so, my child.”
But the morrow and several more days passed without bringing Chérubin back to the village. Louise was so depressed that Nicole forgot her own grief to comfort her.
“But something must have happened to him!” the girl constantly exclaimed. “Probably they are keeping him in Paris against his will; for, if not, he would have come back. Let’s go after him, mother, let’s go after him.”
Nicole tried to make Louise listen to reason.
“Listen, my dear,” she would say, “it’s a long, long while since Monsieur Jasmin began to tell me: ‘My young master will have to go to Paris some time; he can’t pass his whole life out at nurse! If it was known that he’s still with you, I should be scolded.’ And a lot of things like that. The fact is, my child, that they usually take children away from a wet-nurse when they begin to talk, unless—unless——”