"Nine months, three weeks and a day," said Aristide, promptly. The younger lady bent over the miraculous infant. "Can I take him? _Est-ce que je puis_--oh, dear!" She turned a whimsical face to Aristide. He translated. The landlady surrendered the babe. The lady danced him with the spinster's charming awkwardness, yet with instinctive feminine security, about the hall, while the little girls in pigtails, daughters of the house, followed like adoratory angels in an altar-piece, and the old peasant-woman looked benignly on, a myriad-wrinkled St. Elizabeth. Aristide had seen Jean dandled by dozens of women during their brief comradeship; he had thought little of it, as it was the natural thing for women to do; but when this sweet English lady mothered Jean it seemed to matter a great deal. She lifted Jean and himself to a higher plane. Her touch was a consecration. It was the hour of the day when infants of nine months should be washed and put to bed. The landlady, announcing the fact, held out her arms. Jean clung to his English nurse, who played the fascinating game of pretending to eat his hand. The landlady had not that accomplishment. She was dull and practical. "Come and be washed," she said. "Oh, do let me come, too," cried the English lady. "_Bien volontiers, mademoiselle_," said the other. "_C'est par ici._" The English lady held Jean out for the paternal good-night. Aristide kissed the child in her arms. The action brought about, for the moment, a curious and sweet intimacy. "My sister is passionately fond of children," said the elder lady, in smiling apology. "And you?" "I, too. But Anne--my sister--will not let me have a chance when she is by."