sister, "of this wee
mite travelling about in an open motor!"

"He's having the time of his life. He enjoys it as much as I do," said
Aristide, in his excellent English.

The lady started. She was a well-bred, good-humoured woman in the early
thirties, stout, with reddish hair, and irregular though comely
features. Her sister was thin, faded, sandy, and kind-looking.

"I thought you were French," she said, apologetically.

"So I am," replied Aristide. "Provencal of Provence, Meridional of the
Midi, Marseillais of Marseilles."

"But you talk English perfectly."

"I've lived in your beautiful country," said Aristide.

"You have the bonniest boy," said the elder lady. "How old is he?"

"Nine months, three weeks and a day," said Aristide, promptly.

The younger lady bent over the miraculous infant.

"Can I take him? _Est-ce que je puis_--oh, dear!" She turned a whimsical
face to Aristide.

He translated. The landlady surrendered the babe. The lady danced him
with the spinster's charming awkwardness, yet with instinctive feminine
security, about the hall, while the little girls in pigtails, daughters
of the house, followed like adoratory angels in an altar-piece, and the
old peasant-woman looked benignly on, a myriad-wrinkled St. Elizabeth.
Aristide had seen Jean dandled by dozens of women during their brief
comradeship; he had thought little of it, as it was the natural thing
for women to do; but when this sweet English lady mothered Jean it
seemed to matter a great deal. She lifted Jean and himself to a higher
plane. Her touch was a consecration.

It was the hour of the day when infants of nine months should be washed
and put to bed. The landlady, announcing the fact, held out her arms.
Jean clung to his English nurse, who played the fascinating game of
pretending to eat his hand. The landlady had not that accomplishment.
She was dull and practical.

"Come and be washed," she said.

"Oh, do let me come, too," cried the English lady.

"_Bien volontiers, mademoiselle_," said the other. "_C'est par ici._"

The English lady held Jean out for the paternal good-night. Aristide
kissed the child in her arms. The action brought about, for the moment,
a curious and sweet intimacy.

"My sister is passionately fond of children," said the elder lady, in
smiling apology.

"And you?"

"I, too. But Anne--my sister--will not let me have a chance when she is
by."

After dinner Aristide went up, as usual, to his roo