When Stephen kissed Mademoiselle Duphot good-bye, she cried, for she felt that something was going that would never come back—irresponsible childhood. It was going, like Mademoiselle Duphot. Kind Mademoiselle Duphot, so foolishly loving, so easily coerced, so glad to be persuaded; so eager to believe that you were doing your best, in the face of the most obvious slacking. Kind Mademoiselle Duphot who smiled when she shouldn’t, who laughed when she shouldn’t, and now she was weeping—but weeping as only a Latin can weep, shedding rivers of tears and sobbing quite loudly. ‘Chérie—mon bébé, petit chou!’ she was sobbing, as she clung to the angular Stephen. The tears ran down on to Mademoiselle’s tippet, and they wet the poor fur which already looked jaded, and the fur clogged together, turning black with those tears, so that Mademoiselle tried to wipe it. But the more she wiped it the wetter it grew, since her handkerchief only augmented the trouble; nor was Stephen’s large handkerchief very dry either, as she found when she started to help. The old station fly that had come out from Malvern, drove up, and the footman seized Mademoiselle’s luggage. It was such meagre luggage that he waved back assistance from the driver, and lifted the trunk single-handed. Then Mademoiselle Duphot broke out into English—heaven only knew why, perhaps from emotion. ‘It’s not farewell, it shall not be for ever—’ she sobbed. ‘You come, but I feel it, to Paris. We meet once more, Stévenne, my poor little baby, when you grow up bigger, we two meet once more—’ And Stephen, already taller than she was, longed to grow small again, just to please Mademoiselle. Then, because the French are a practical people even in moments of real emotion, Mademoiselle found her handbag, and groping in its depths she produced a half sheet of paper. ‘The address of my sister in Paris,’ she said, snuffling; ‘the address of my sister who makes little bags—if you should hear of anyone, Stévenne—any lady who would care to buy one little bag—’ ‘Yes, yes, I’ll remember,’ muttered Stephen. At last she was gone; the fly rumbled away down the drive and finally turned the corner. To the end a wet face had been thrust from the window, a wet handkerchief waved despondently at Stephen. The rain must have mingled with Mademoiselle’s tears, for the weather had broken and now it was raining. It was surely a desolate day for departure, with the mist closing over the Severn Valley and beginning to creep up the hillsides. . . .