Now that he was shut up with her, often for days, because of his ill-health, his winter colds and the greedy affection of his mother, she was his principal resource. He watched her curiously while he sang to himself, moving about, pursuing his other occupations--for a child's intelligence, like its body, is lithe and hard to hold. No matter if he is facing the other way, he sees you with eyes in the back of his head, and his cat's ears turn like weathercocks at the sound of your voice. If this all-observing attention chases three or four hares at a time, it never loses the trail, it amuses itself, it knows very well that to-morrow it will begin again. . . . The hare allowed herself to be caught. Expansive, easily carried away, prodigal in her feelings, Annette was never niggardly. She spent herself without calculation. At one moment she spoke to him as to a very little child, and she hurt his feelings: he thought her ridiculous. Again she would speak to him as to a companion of her thoughts, too old for his age, and she wearied him: he thought her a bore. Sometimes she let herself think out loud, carried on a monologue before him, as if he could understand it. Then he thought her queer, and he watched her with a severe, mocking look. He did not understand her; but people who do not understand never surrender their right to judge. He had adopted an artificial attitude that was convenient for him because he could apply it to all cases: the impertinent, absent-minded politeness of a well-brought-up child who appears to listen because he must, but who is not in the least interested in all these things, who has his own concerns and, when you speak to him, waits till you have finished. At other times he amused himself playing at kissing her so as to give her pleasure. He knew that his mother was nearly bursting with happiness. The foolish woman responded with all her heart. When she fell into his snares, he had a sort of affectionate contempt for her. When she busied herself in a way that he had not foreseen, he was annoyed, but he had more respect for her. He was incapable of playing one part very long. A child is too yielding and is always jumping from one thing to another. A moment after he had pretended to be so warm-hearted and had enchanted her with his effusions, he unblushingly betrayed his indifference in the harshest way. Annette was completely upset.