tour round a little world which took up a good hour.  At last he was able to venture on a few steps alone.  She would stand before him with outstretched hands, and move backwards, calling him, so that he should cross the room in search of her supporting arms.  If he sulked and refused to walk, she would take the comb from her hair and hold it out to him like a toy.  Then he would come to her and sit still in a corner for hours, playing with her comb, and gently scratching his hands with its teeth.

At last one morning she found him up.  He had already succeeded in opening one of the shutters, and was attempting to walk about without leaning on the furniture.

‘Good gracious, we are active this morning!’ she exclaimed gleefully.  ’Why, he will be jumping out of the window to-morrow if he has his own way——­ So you are quite strong now, eh?’

Serge’s answer was a childish laugh.  His limbs were regaining the strength of adolescence, but more perceptive sensations remained unroused.  He spent whole afternoons in gazing out on the Paradou, pouting like a child that sees nought but whiteness and hears but the vibration of sounds.  He still retained the ignorance of urchinhood—­his sense of touch as yet so innocent that he failed to tell Albine’s gown from the covers of the old armchairs.  His eyes still stared wonderingly; his movements still displayed the wavering hesitation of limbs which scarce knew how to reach their goal; his state was one of incipient, purely instinctive existence into which entered no knowledge of surroundings.  The man was not yet born within him.

‘That’s right, you’ll act the silly, will you?’ muttered Albine.  ’We’ll see.’

She took off her comb, and held it out to him.

‘Will you have my comb?’ she said.  ‘Come and fetch it.’

When she had got him out of the room, by retreating before him all the way, she put her arm round his waist and helped him down each stair, amusing him while she put her comb back, even tickling his neck with a lock of her hair, so that he remained unaware that he was going downstairs.  But when he was in the hall, he became frightened at the darkness of the passage.

‘Just look!’ she cried, throwing the door wide open.

It was like a sudden dawn, a curtain of shadow snatched aside, revealing the joyousness of early day.  The park spread out before them verdantly limpid, freshly cool and deep as a spring.  Serge, entranced, lingered upon the threshold, with a hesitating desire to feel that luminous lake with his foot.

‘One would think you were afraid of wetting yourself,’ said Albine.  ‘Don’t be frightened, the ground is safe enough.’

He had ventured to take one step, and was astonished at encountering the soft resistance of the gravel.  The first touch of the soil gave him a shock; life seemed to rebound within him and to set him for a moment erect, with expanding frame, while he drew long breaths.