'What does this mean?' he asked in apparent amazement, first of the child and then of the white face beyond. The mother pushed up the sash.
'Sir,' she cried, 'he is my son; and having been forbidden by me, when Madame Fardeau was living, to touch this piano, has escaped from me in the night! Send him here to me, I implore you.'
'Is this so?' asked the stranger doubtingly, and with that strange manner which, however perfectly one speaks the tongue, always indicates the foreigner.
'Yes, it is so!' answered Fauntleroy stoutly, as his mother's words were impugned. 'Mother never knew of my coming till to-night; and where's the harm?'
'You have been here before, then?'
'Oh! yes,' answered Fauntleroy, into whose nature there had not been instilled sufficient awe of any one to make it seem to him worth while to tell a lie.
'Several times?'
'Several times.'
'When did you first come?'
'Oh! a great while ago; a great many years, I should think.'