Not satisfied with this, he piled full of wood the stone oven outside the
house, and carried water for her from the spring. This came from natural
kindness, for he did not see the tempting look she gave him, nor the
invitation in her eye, as he turned to leave her. He merely asked her
name. But after he had gone, as though he had forgotten, or remembered,
something, he leaped the fence again, came up to her with an air of half-
abstraction, half-courtesy, took both her hands in his, and, before she
could recover herself, kissed her on the cheeks in a paternal sort of
way, saying, "Adieu, adieu, my child!" and left her.

The act had condescension in it; yet, too, something unconsciously simple
and primitive. Parpon the dwarf, who that moment perched himself on the
fence, could not decide which Valmond was just then--dauphin or fool.
Valmond did not see the little man, but swung away down the dusty road,
reciting to himself couplets from 'Le Vieux Drapeau':

"Oh, come, my flag, come, hope of mine,
And thou shalt dry these fruitless tears;"

and apparently, without any connection, he passed complacently to an
entirely different song:

"She loved to laugh, she loved to drink,
I bought her jewels fine."

Then he added, with a suddenness which seemed to astound himself,--for
afterwards he looked round quickly, as if to see if he had been heard,--
"Elise Malboir--h'm! a pretty name, Elise; but Malboir--tush! it should
be Malbarre; the difference between Lombardy cider and wine of the
Empire."