“I’M dreadfully afraid that those boys have been bullying Gaston again,” Phoena remarked to Faith, some days later.
“Why, I saw them all starting out together to play cricket on the common,” said Faith, “less than an hour ago.”
“I know, but when I came through the orchard just now, Gaston dashed past me, with his head down, and flew through a gap in the hedge. I did not run after him, for I saw he did not want me to notice him.”
“Really,” cried Fay, a little impatiently, “I think it must be his own fault. Our boys are not really bullies; see how good they are to the infants, and I’m sure if Gaston would only play with them like a sensible boy they would be glad enough to have him.”
“Of course they would,” put in Di; “the truth is, he can’t get on with them, because he’s such a wretched little French specimen. He’s only fit to sit by Phoena and tell silly stories about French fairies. Ugh! I’m glad I wasn’t born a French girl.”
“It’s no credit to you that you weren’t,” said Phoena, quickly, “and I think it’s very unkind of you to be always reminding Gaston of what he can’t help. He never jeers our boys for being English, and I daresay they seem quite as silly to him as—”
“Oh, no, I’m sure they can’t,” broke in Di, whilst Faith added, “I’m certain that Gaston would do anything to be like our boys.”
“Of course, anyone can see that,” said Phoena, “that’s why I’m so sorry for him. I know he’d love to be treated as an equal by Jack and Phil, for he has a deal more spirit in him than he shows.”
But even Phoena did not gauge how much Gaston pined to be admitted to an equality with the English boys, for whom he felt an unbounded admiration; nor did she guess how, at the same time, he resented their jeers at his nationality. So long as his parents lived, their little Gaston had been their bijou, their petit coeur—their jewel, their little heart,—and he had been taught to consider France as the grandest country in all the world, and to be proud, very proud, of having been born a Frenchman.
So, when he first came to England to make his home with his grandmother, it was absolutely bewildering to his seven-year-old intelligence to grasp the reason of Madame Delzant’s Martha’s contemptuous pity for his Frenchified ways and clothes, a pity which changed entirely into open scorn when the old lady became too ill to leave her room again, and Gaston was left wholly at the mercy of this well-meaning, but terribly narrow-minded servant.