Little Fabien Doucet, leaning on his crutch, looked up with interest.

“Is he lame like me?” he asked.

“No, child,” replied Madame compassionately—­“He is straight and strong.  In truth a very pretty boy.”

Fabien sighed.  Babette made a dash forward.

“I will go and see him!” she said—­“And I will call Monseigneur.”

“Babette!  How dare you!  Babette!”

But Babette had scurried defiantly past her mother, and breathless with a sense of excitement and disobedience intermingled, had burst into the Cardinal’s room without knocking.  There on the threshold she paused,—­somewhat afraid at her own boldness,—­and startled too at the sight of Manuel, who was seated near the window opposite the Cardinal, and who turned his deep blue eyes upon her with a look of enquiry.  The Cardinal himself rose and turned to greet her, and as the wilful little maid met his encouraging glance and noted the benign sweetness of his expression she trembled,—­and losing nerve, began to cry.

“Monseigneur . . .  Monseigneur . . .” she stammered.

“Yes, my child,—­what is it?” said the Cardinal kindly—­“Do not be afraid,—­I am at your service.  You have brought the little friend you spoke to me of yesterday?”

Babette peeped shyly at him through her tears, and drooping her head, answered with a somewhat smothered “Yes.”

“That is well,—­I will go to him at once,”—­and the Cardinal paused a moment looking at Manuel, who as if responding to his unuttered wish, rose and approached him—­“And you, Manuel—­you will also come.  You see, my child,” went on the good prelate addressing Babette, the while he laid a gently caressing hand on her hair—­“Another little friend has come to me who is also very sad,—­and though he is not crippled or ill, he is all alone in the world, which is, for one so young, a great hardship.  You must be sorry for him too, as well as for your own poor playmate.”

But Babette was seized with an extraordinary timidity, and had much ado to keep back the tears that rose in her throat and threatened to break out in a burst of convulsive sobbing.  She did not know in the least what was the matter with her,—­she was only conscious of an immense confusion and shyness which were quite new to her ordinarily bold and careless nature.  Manuel’s face frightened yet fascinated her; he looked, she thought, like the beautiful angel of the famous stained glass “Annunciation” window in the crumbling old church of St. Maclou.  She dared not speak to him,—­she could only steal furtive glances at him from under the curling length of her dark tear-wet lashes,—­and when the Cardinal took her by the hand and descended the staircase with her to the passage where the crippled Fabien waited, she could not forbear glancing back every now and then over her shoulder at the slight, supple, almost aerial figure of the boy, who, noiselessly, and with a light gliding step, followed.  And now Madame Patoux came forward;—­a bulky, anxious figure of gesticulation and apology.