m to see that Jean
was alive, painless, and asleep. Finding him awake, he sat by his side
and, with the earnestness of a nursery-maid, patted him off to slumber.
Then he crept out on tiptoe and went downstairs. Outside the hotel he
came upon the two sisters sitting on a bench and drinking coffee. The
night was fine, the terraces of the neighbouring cafes were filled with
people, and all the life of Aix not at the cafes promenaded up and down
the wide and pleasant avenue. The ladies smiled. How was the boy? He
gave the latest news. Permission to join them at their coffee was
graciously given. A waiter brought a chair and he sat down. Conversation
drifted from the baby to general topics. The ladies told the simple
story of their tour. They had been to Nice and Marseilles, and they were
going on the next day to Avignon. They also told their name--Honeywood.
He gathered that the elder was Janet, the younger Anne. They lived at
Chislehurst when they were in England, and often came up to London to
attend the Queen's Hall concerts and the dramatic performances at His
Majesty's Theatre. As guileless, though as self-reliant, gentlewomen
as sequestered England could produce. Aristide, impressionable and
responsive, fell at once into the key of their talk. He has told me that
their society produced on him the effect of the cool hands of saints
against his cheek.

At last the conversation inevitably returned to Jean. The landlady had
related the tragic history of the dead mother and the invalid aunt. They
deplored the orphaned state of the precious babe. For he was precious,
they declared. Miss Anne had taken him to her heart.

"If only you had seen him in his bath, Janet!"

She turned to Aristide. "I'm afraid," she said, very softly, hesitating
a little--"I'm afraid this must be a sad journey for you."

He made a wry mouth. The sympathy was so sincere, so womanly. That which
was generous in him revolted against acceptance.

"Mademoiselle," said he, "I can play a farce with landladies--it happens
to be convenient--in fact, necessary. But with you--no. You are
different. Jean is not my child, and who his parents are I've not the
remotest idea."

"Not your child?" They looked at him incredulously.

"I will tell you--in confidence," said he.

Jean's history was related in all its picturesque details; the horrors
of the life of an _enfant trouve_ luridly depicted. The sisters listened
with tears in their foolish eyes. Behind t