"What are you doing here, dear child?" he whispered, looking around
and pinching her cheek.
"We're playing."
"What, with him?" said Julian Mastakovich with a look askance at the
governess's child. "You should go into the drawing-room, my lad," he
said to him.
The boy remained silent and looked up at the man with wide-open eyes.
Julian Mastakovich glanced round again cautiously and bent down over
the girl.
"What have you got, a doll, my dear?"
"Yes, sir." The child quailed a little, and her brow wrinkled.
"A doll? And do you know, my dear, what dolls are made of?"
"No, sir," she said weakly, and lowered her head.
"Out of rags, my dear. You, boy, you go back to the drawing-room, to
the children," said Julian Mastakovich looking at the boy sternly.
The two children frowned. They caught hold of each other and would not
part.
"And do you know why they gave you the doll?" asked Julian
Mastakovich, dropping his voice lower and lower.
"No."
"Because you were a good, very good little girl the whole week."
Saying which, Julian Mastakovich was seized with a paroxysm of
agitation. He looked round and said in a tone faint, almost inaudible
with excitement and impatience:
"If I come to visit your parents will you love me, my dear?"
He tried to kiss the sweet little creature, but the red-haired boy saw
that she was on the verge of tears, and he caught her hand and sobbed
out loud in sympathy.
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