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Updated: June 6, 2025
Madame Ewans rose from the piano, patted her pale flaxen hair in place with a pretty gesture, and gave a sidelong look in the mirror as she passed. "I'm going to dress," she told them; "I shall not be long."
Servien stood by in gloomy silence, conscious of his own inefficiency. His heart swelled with a sullen anger. He was hurt, and longed for somebody or something to vent his hate upon. The drive home was a silent one. Jean nearly gave himself cramp in his determined efforts not to touch with his own the knees of Madame Ewans' who dozed on the back seat of the conveyance.
"Ewans," said Jean, as he pushed a pebble along one of the lines drawn in charcoal on the stone coping, "Ewans, you must find it tiresome to be a boarder?" "Mother cannot have me with her at home," replied the boy. Servien asked why. "Oh! Because " stammered Ewans. He stared a long time at the white pebble he held in his hand ready to play, before he added: "My mother goes travelling."
Madame Ewans shrugged her shoulders. "Stay where you are!" she told the boys, and passed into the dining-room, whence the murmur of two voices could presently be heard. Jean asked Edgar, under his breath, who the gentleman was. "Monsieur Delbèque," Edgar informed him. "He keeps horses and a carriage. He deals in pigs. One evening he took us to the theatre, mother and me."
Their thoughts flowed softly on like the current before their eyes, while the dusk and cool of the evening wrapped them in a soft caress. For the first time Jean Servien, as he gazed at Madame Ewans, felt the thrill of a woman's sweet proximity.
Madame Ewans examined this last exhibit with a curiosity that very soon became critical. "People may say what they please," she muttered; "if you offered me the whole world, I wouldn't have such big feet and such a thick waist. And then, your regular features aren't one bit attractive. Men like a face that says something."
They were still there when a band of fifes, trombones, and trumpets struck up close by, playing a popular polka tune. The very first bar put Madame Ewans on her mettle. She drew Jean to her, settled his hands in hers and lifting him off the ground with a jerk of the hip, began dancing with him.
When they left the tent, the sun was low and the dust hovered in golden clouds over the throng of women, working-men, and soldiers. It was time for dinner; but as they passed the monkey-cage, Madame Ewans noticed such a crush of eager spectators squeezing in between the baize curtains on the platform in front that she could not resist the temptation to follow suit.
Presently, warmed by a trifle of wine and water he had drunk, he became wholly lost in his dreams visions of all sorts of elegant, preposterous, chivalrous things. His head was still full of these fancies when he was dragged back to the fair-ground by Madame Ewans, who could never have enough of sight-seeing and noise.
He rang the bell, blushed hotly and was sorry he had rung. He would have given worlds to run away. A maid-servant opened the door, and behind her stood Edgar Ewans, wearing a brown holland suit, in which he looked entirely at his ease.
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