But he was pale and there was a faint
ring round his heavy eyelids. His mother, that "bag of bones," a little
dark woman, yellow and withered at six-and-twenty, looked at him with an
expression of egotistical pride.
"Oh, no! he's never ill," she answered. "Only he has been complaining of
his legs. And so I made him lie down, and I wrote last night to ask Dr.
Boutan to call this morning."
"Pooh!" exclaimed Beauchene with a hearty laugh, "women are all the same!
A child who is as strong as a Turk! I should just like anybody to tell me
that he isn't strong."
Precisely at that moment in walked Dr. Boutan, a short, stout man of
forty, with very keen eyes set in a clean-shaven, heavy, but extremely
good-natured face. He at once examined the child, felt and sounded him;
then with his kindly yet serious air he said: "No, no, there's nothing.
It is the mere effect of growth. The lad has become rather pale through
spending the winter in Paris, but a few months in the open air, in the
country, will set him right again."
"I told you so!" cried Beauchene.
Constance had kept her son's little hand in her own. He had again
stretched himself out and closed his eyes in a weary way, whilst she, in
her happiness, continued smiling.
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