ted with stars."

She looked at him wide-eyed, in great concern.

"Do you mean that you have ever been homeless?"

He laughed. "I think I've been everything imaginable, except married."

"Hush!" she said. "Listen!" Her keen ear had caught a child's cry. "It's
Jean. I must go."

She hurried out. Aristide prepared to light another cigarette. But a
second before the application of the flaring match an idea struck him.
He blew out the match, replaced the cigarette in his case, and with a
dexterity that revealed the professional of years ago, began to clear
the table. He took the things noiselessly into the kitchen, shut the
door, and master of the kitchen and scullery washed up. Then, the most
care-free creature in the world, he stole down the stone passage into
the wilderness of Beverly Stoke.

An hour afterwards he knocked at the front door, Anne Honeywood admitted
him.

"I have arranged with the good Mrs. Buttershaw. She lives a hundred
yards down the road. I bring my baggage to-morrow evening."

Anne regarded him in a humorous, helpless way. "I can't prevent you,"
she said, "but I can give you a piece of advice."

"What is it?"

"Don't wash up for Mrs. Buttershaw."

* * * * *

So it came to pass that Aristide Pujol took up his residence at
Beverly Stoke, trudging every morning three miles to catch his
business train at St. Albans, and trudging back every evening three
miles to Beverly Stoke. Every morning he ran into the cottage for a
sight of little Jean and every evening after a digestion-racking meal
prepared by Mrs. Buttershaw he went to the cottage armed with toys
and weird and injudicious food for little Jean and demanded an account
of the precious infant's doings during the day. Gradually Jean
recovered of his congestion, being a sturdy urchin, and, to Aristide's
delight, resumed the normal life of childhood.

"_Moi, je suis papa_," said Aristide. "He has got to speak French, and
he had better begin at once. It is absurd that anyone born between Salon
and Arles should not speak French and Provencal; we'll leave Provencal
till later. _Moi, je suis papa, Jean._ Say _papa_."

"I don't quite see how he can call you that, Mr. Pujol," said Anne, with
the suspicion of a flush on her cheek.

"And why not? Has the poor child any other papa in the whole wide world?
And at four years old not to have a father is heart-breaking. Do you
want us to bring him up an orphan? No. Yo