y love!"

This word love struck the little ear of Enguerrand as having a new
accent, a new meaning, and, boy-like, he tried to turn this excess of
tenderness to advantage.

"Since you love me so much, will you take me to see the puppet-show?"

"Anywhere you like--when I come back. Goodby."

CHAPTER XX

A CHIVALROUS SOUL

Madame D'Argy sat knitting by the window in Fred's chamber, with that
resigned but saddened air that mothers wear when they are occupied in
repairing the consequences of some rash folly. Fred had seen her in his
boyhood knitting in the same way with the same, look on her face, when he
had been thrown from his pony, or had fallen from his velocipede. He
himself looked ill at ease and worried, as he lay on a sofa with his arm
in a sling. He was yawning and counting the hours. From time to time his
mother glanced at him. Her look was curious, and anxious, and loving, all
at the same time. He pretended to be asleep. He did not like to see her
watching him. His handsome masculine face, tanned that pale brown which
tropical climates give to fair complexions, looked odd as it rose above a
light-blue cape, a very feminine garment which, as it had no sleeves, had
been tied round his neck to keep him from being cold. He felt himself,
with some impatience, at the mercy of the most tender, but the most
sharp-eyed of nurses, a prisoner to her devotion, and made conscious of
her power every moment. Her attentions worried him; he knew that they all
meant "It is your own fault, my poor boy, that you are in this state, and
that your mother is so unhappy." He felt it. He knew as well as if she
had spoken that she was asking him to return to reason, to marry, without
more delay, their little neighbor in Normandy, Mademoiselle d'Argeville,
a niece of M. Martel, whom he persisted in not thinking of as a wife,
always calling her a "cider apple," in allusion to her red cheeks.

A servant came in, and said to Madame d'Argy that Madame de Talbrun was
in the salon.

"I am coming," she said, rolling up her knitting.

But Fred suddenly woke up:

"Why not ask her to come here?"

"Very good," said his mother, with hesitation. She was distracted between
her various anxieties; exasperated against the fatal influence of
Jacqueline, alarmed by the increasing intimacy with Giselle, desirous
that all such complications should be put an end to by his marriage, but
terribly afraid that her "cider apple" would not be suffi