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Madame Patoux, large of body, unwieldy in movement, but clean as a new pin, and with a fat smile of perpetual contentment on her round visage, professed to be utterly worn to death by the antics of these children of hers, but nevertheless she managed to grow stouter every day with a persistency and fortitude which denoted the reserved forces of her nature, and her cooking, always excellent, never went wrong because Babette had managed to put her doll in one of the saucepans, or Henri had essayed to swim a paper boat in the soup.
"And Monseigneur, the Cardinal Bonpre, has he also been served?" Madame Patoux opened her round eyes wide at him. "But certainly! Dost thou think, my little cabbage, thou wouldst get thy food before Monseigneur? That would be strange indeed!" Papa Patoux swallowed his ladleful of soup in abashed silence.
"No, Monseigneur, no," said Madame Patoux very softly and tremulously "It is almost as if he were a little lost Angel sent to comfort you." A curious thrill went through the Cardinal. An angel to comfort him! He looked down at Manuel who still clung caressingly to his arm, and who met his earnest scrutiny with a sweet candid smile. "Where did you come from, Manuel?" asked Bonpre suddenly.
And now Madame Patoux came forward; a bulky, anxious figure of gesticulation and apology. "Alas, Monseigneur!" she began plaintively "It is too shameful that your quiet should be disturbed in this way, but if you could only know the obstinacy of these children! Ah yes! if you knew all, you would pity their parents! you would indeed!
Now and then neighbours passed, and nodded or called a greeting which Madame Patoux answered cheerily, still knitting vivaciously; and the long shafts of sunshine grew longer, casting deeper shadows as the quarters chimed.
They stroke my hair and pull it all the wrong way. And it hurts. And when I don't like my hair pulled the wrong way, they tell me I will be a great coquette. A coquette is to be like Diane de Poitiers. Shall I be like Diane de Poitiers?" "The saints forbid!" cried Madame Patoux, "And talk no more nonsense, child, it's bed-time.
"Because Diane de Poitiers was a wicked woman," said Madame Patoux energetically, "and thou must learn to be a good girl." "But if Diane de Poitiers was bad, why do they talk so much about her even now, and put her in all the histories, and show her house, and say she was beautiful?" went on Babette.
Benedicite!" And the Archbishop, still smiling to himself, walked leisurely across the square in the direction of his own house, where his supper awaited him. The moon had risen, and was clambering slowly up between the two tall towers of Notre Dame, her pure silver radiance streaming mockingly against the candle Jean Patoux still held in the doorway of his inn, and almost extinguishing its flame.
Madame Patoux gazed at him in fascinated silence, gazed and gazed, till she found her eyes suddenly full of tears. Then she turned away to hide them, but not before Cardinal Bonpre had observed her emotion. "Well, good MOTHER" he said with gentle emphasis on the word "Would you have me forsake this child that I have found?"
All at once there was a cry, a woman's figure came rushing precipitately across the square, Madame Patoux sprang up, and her children ran out of the porch as they recognised Martine Doucet. "Martine! Martine! What is it!" they all cried simultaneously.
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