“What, with him?” said Julian Mastakovich with a look askance at the governess’s child. “You should go into the drawing-room, my lad,” he said to him.
The boy remained silent and looked up at the man with wide-open eyes. Julian Mastakovich glanced round again cautiously and bent down over the girl.
“What have you got, a doll, my dear?”
“Yes, sir.” The child quailed a little, and her brow wrinkled.
“A doll? And do you know, my dear, what dolls are made of?”
“No, sir,” she said weakly, and lowered her head.
“Out of rags, my dear. You, boy, you go back to the drawing-room, to the children,” said Julian Mastakovich looking at the boy sternly.
The two children frowned. They caught hold of each other and would not part.
“And do you know why they gave you the doll?” asked Julian Mastakovich, dropping his voice lower and lower.
“No.”