g its wings grown,
seeks to leave the nest, shall I not be able to bring him back by
invisible ties to the arms in which he now is sleeping? Perhaps at that
wretched moment they call a man's youth you will forget me, my little
darling! Other hands than mine perhaps will brush the hair away from
your forehead at twenty. Alas! other lips, pressed burningly where mine
are now pressed, will wipe out with a kiss twenty years of caresses.
Yes, but when you return from this intoxicating and fatiguing journey,
tired and exhausted, you will soon take refuge in the arms that once
nursed you, you will rest your poor, aching head where it rests now, you
will ask me to wipe away your tears and to make you forget the bruises
received on the way, and I shall give you, weeping for joy, the kiss
which at once consoles and fills with hope.

But I see that I am writing a whole volume, dear Marie. I will not
re-read it or I should never dare to send it to you. What would you
have? I am losing my head a little. I am not yet accustomed to all this
happiness.

Yours affectionately.

CHAPTER XXV. FOUR YEARS LATER

Yes, my dear, he is a man and a man for good and all. He has come back
from the country half as big again and as bold as a lion. He climbs on
to the chairs, stops the clocks and sticks his hands in his pockets like
a grown-up person.

When I see in the morning in the anteroom my baby's little shoes
standing proudly beside the paternal boots, I experience, despite
myself, a return toward that past which is yet so near. Yesterday
swaddling clothes, today boots, tomorrow spurs. Ah! how the happy days
fly by. Already four years old. I can scarcely carry him, even supposing
he allowed me to, for his manly dignity is ticklish. He passes half his
life armed for war, his pistols, his guns, his whips and his swords are
all over the place. There is a healthy frankness about all his doings
that charms me.

Do you imagine from this that my demon no longer has any good in him? At
times he is an angel and freely returns the caresses I bestow upon him.
In the evening after dinner he gets down into my armchair, takes my head
in his hands and arranges my hair in his own way. His fresh little mouth
travels all over my face. He imprints big sounding kisses on the back
of my neck, which makes me shudder all over. We have endless talks
together. "Why's" come in showers, and all these "why's" require real
answers; for the intell