“I am very wicked,” she said in a small voice, between eagerness and tears; “I am not a saint at all. Monsieur may do with me as he will.” Now surely this young man had the fairy Temperance to his godmother when he was christened. His point gained, he disposed his model with a very pretty eye to business, and was soon at work. “Nicette,” said he, “how has this youthful whipper-snapper misconducted himself?” “Baptiste, monsieur? He was dainty with his food; and--the day was hot, and perhaps I was ever so little cross.” She accepted the understanding, it will be seen--thrilled perhaps over the secret ecstasy implied in this prospect of a lay confessor. “Well, _ma chérie_,” said Ned, “you may relax discipline now, may you not? It worries me to have this inconversable ape criticising me from his corner.” “Baptiste,” said Nicette, “you may go and play--in the shadow, Baptiste.” The child went out dully, with a lifeless step. It would seem he recognised no enticing novelty in the form of words. “Now we will have a comfortable coze,” said Ned. “How, monsieur?” “That means we will exchange confidences, girl.” Nicette smiled. “You do not love children, monsieur?” she asked. “Truly, I think not. They know, I fancy, so much more than they will tell. I feel nervous in their company, as if they might blackmail me if they would. It is no use to be conscious of my own innocence. Vague terrors assail me that they may be in possession of dark secrets that I have forgotten. For them, they never forget.” “It is so, indeed, with little doubt.” “Is it not? They inherit the ages, one must admit. They are like eggs, full of the concentrated meat of wisdom; and as such it is right to sit upon them. It is a self-protective instinct thus to hurry their development, for so their abnormal precocity distributes itself over an ever-increasing area and weakens in its acuteness.” “And they have cunning, monsieur.” “Without doubt--the cunning to evoke and trade upon sympathy with sufferings that they pretend to, but are physically incapable of feeling.” The girl looked up, her eyes expressive of some strangeness of emotion. “Are they not able to feel, then, monsieur?” “Not as we do, Nicette. Their nervous organism has not yet come to tyrannise over the spiritual in them. Turn thy head as before, _babouine_. The light falls crooked on thy mouth. No; I wish never to be burdened with a child, either my own or another’s.” A low boom of thunder rolled up the sky. Nicette started and drove her chair back a little distance from the window. “That is vexatious of you, you pullet. Are you afraid of thunder?” “Oh yes--dear mother!--when it is close.” “But that is yet far away.” “It will advance--it is the _diligence_ of the skies bringing inhuman company. _Mon Dieu_! when one hears the driver crack his whip, and the horses plunge forward, and there follows the rumbling of the wheels!” “Talk on. I love to hear thee. But take courage first to resume thy pose.”