parasol or hat or flowers, the quay, the ships, the bales, the
barrels, the air, the noise, the crowd, all seemed to play and
sing,

"Enfant! si j'etais roi je donerais l'empire,
Et mon char, et mon septre, et mon peuple a genoux,"

and he ran to meet her.

He never dared to do more than to take both her chubby brown
hands, nor to say more than "You are very sweet, you are very very
good." And she never went further than to look at him, walk with
him, laugh with him, and say to him, "You are not like the
others." What experiences there had been in the life of this girl
of thirteen goodness alone knows. He never asked her, he was too
sure of her.

He learned French from her as one bird feeds from another's bill,
or as one who looks at his image in a fountain, as be drinks from
it.

One day, as mother and son were at breakfast, she glanced quietly
across at him. "I heard of an excellent preparatory school of
mechanics at Rouen," she said, "so I wrote to inquire about it,
and here is the answer. I approve of it in all respects, as you
will do when you read it. I think that we shall go to Rouen; what
do you say to it?"

He grew first red, then white; then put down his bread, his table
napkin; got up and left the room. Later in the day she asked him