fixity of gaze. Desprez could not tell whether he was fascinating the
boy, or the boy was fascinating him. He busied himself over the sick man,
he put questions, he felt the pulse, he jested, he grew a little hot and
swore: and still, whenever he looked round, there were the brown eyes
waiting for his with the same inquiring, melancholy gaze.

At last the Doctor hit on the solution at a leap. He remembered the look
now. The little fellow, although he was as straight as a dart, had the
eyes that go usually with a crooked back; he was not at all deformed, and
yet a deformed person seemed to be looking at you from below his brows.
The Doctor drew a long breath, he was so much relieved to find a theory
(for he loved theories) and to explain away his interest.

For all that, he despatched the invalid with unusual haste, and, still
kneeling with one knee on the floor, turned a little round and looked the
boy over at his leisure. The boy was not in the least put out, but looked
placidly back at the Doctor.

"Is this your father?" asked Desprez.

"Oh no," returned the boy; "my master."

"Are you fond of him?" continued the Doctor.

"No, sir," said the boy.

Madame Tentaillon and Desprez exchanged expressive glances.

"That is bad, my man," resumed the latter, with a shade of sternness.
"Every one should be fond of the dying, or conceal their sentiments; and
your master here is dying. If I have watched a bird a little while
stealing my cherries, I have a thought of disappointment when he flies
away over my garden wall, and I see him steer for the forest and vanish.
How much more a creature such as this, so strong, so astute, so richly
endowed with faculties! When I think that, in a few hours, the speech
will be silenced, the breath extinct, and even the shadow vanished from
the wall, I who never saw him, this lady who knew him only as a guest,
are touched with some affection."

The boy was silent for a little, and appeared to be reflecting.

"You did not know him," he replied at last. "He was a bad man."

"He is a little pagan," said the landlady. "For that matter, they are all
the same, these mountebanks, tumblers, artists, and what not. They have
no interior."

But the Doctor was still scrutinising the little pagan, his eyebrows
knotted and uplifted.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Jean-Marie," said the lad.

Desprez leaped upon him with one of his sudden flashes of excitement, and
felt his head all over