Part 27

It was the hour of the day when infants of nine months should be washed and put to bed. The landlady, announcing the fact, held out her arms. Jean clung to his English nurse, who played the fascinating game of pretending to eat his hand. The landlady had not that accomplishment. She was dull and practical.

"Come and be washed," she said.

"Oh, do let me come, too," cried the English lady.

"Bien volontiers, mademoiselle," said the other. "C'est par ici."

The English lady held Jean out for the paternal good-night. Aristide kissed the child in her arms. The action brought about, for the moment, a curious and sweet intimacy.

"My sister is passionately fond of children," said the elder lady, in smiling apology.

"And you?"

"I, too. But Anne--my sister--will not let me have a chance when she is by."

After dinner Aristide went up, as usual, to his room 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 cafés were filled with people, and all the life of Aix not at the cafés 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 trouvé luridly depicted. The sisters listened with tears in their foolish eyes. Behind the tears Anne's grew bright. When he had finished she stretched out her hand impulsively.

"Oh, I call it splendid of you!"

He took the hand and, in his graceful French fashion, touched it with his lips. She flushed, having expected, in her English way, that he would grasp it.

"Your commendation, mademoiselle, is sweet to hear," said he.

"I hope he will grow up to be a true comfort to you, M. Pujol," said Miss Janet.

"I can understand a woman doing what you've done, but scarcely a man," said Miss Anne.

"But, dear mademoiselle," cried Aristide, with a large gesture, "cannot a man have his heart touched, his--his--ses entrailles, enfin--stirred by baby fingers? Why should love of the helpless and the innocent be denied him?"

"Why, indeed?" said Miss Janet.

Miss Anne said, humbly: "I only meant that your devotion to Jean was all the more beautiful, M. Pujol."

Soon after this they parted, the night air having grown chill. Both ladies shook hands with him warmly.

Anne's hand lingered the fraction of a second longer in his than Janet's. She had seen Jean in his bath.

Aristide wandered down the gay avenue into the open road and looked at the stars, reading in their splendour a brilliant destiny for Jean. He felt, in his sensitive way, that the two sweet-souled Englishwomen had deepened and sanctified his love for Jean. When he returned to the hotel he kissed his incongruous room-mate with the gentleness of a woman.