Part 22 (2/2)
”Eh? What do you think of that? A wise infant--eh? Could anything be ht It was perfectly just: perfectly reasonable There you had the stark and appalling fact For this is Nouood season This is Nouy If you expect your convicts to pair off and to breed like free folk, you must expect their children likewise to couple as they can--or will: free folks themselves And hom? Where do you draw the line? What kind of a social foreneration, reared in an out-door jail? Our wise philanthropists who devised the experiht so far ahead They should have been interested in Zelie--the perfect product
Meanwhile there remained my companion--Bibi-Ri Poor Bibi-Ri
Whatever had passed between him and that unhappy deluded child I could not know, you comprehend--in truth I never did know But they reat a He writhed Nevertheless I saas going toI sensed his effort I heard him draw his breath sharp like a man who plucks the barb from the wound
”One moment, Madame!” He avoided Zelie In abrupt and flurried speech he addressed hi This is mere madness And painful And unnecessary There is still one easy way out for her, you know--for Zelie, for me, for everybody Still a way”
She unbent to hial son
”Tiens!” she cried ”You have perceived it?”
”I have remembered I intended not to tell you: to let it come of itself And truly--you drove it somewhat out of et Zelie to listen--”
”Ha! Just look at her there!”
”It fits the need”
”She never had but one, my boy--to hear you speak out once like this: as if you meant it” ”And besides,” he staht still hold against me, myself”
”Parbleu! I should hope so!”
He labored on, with a kind of desperate snuffle
”At the end, Madame, we can always turn for aid to the Church--the patient friend of us all This afternoon--uneasy about Zelie, I confess, and thinking a decisive step would be best for every one--this very afternoon I took ory's and there I saw--”
”Bibi-Ri: in a moment I shall kiss you!”
”For God's sake let me speak, Madame! I saw the Directress of the Order of St Joseph of Cluny She heard ood nuns--how they rescue any they can of the children of Nou sister will visit you here By great luck she is returning home very soon If the dispositions are favorable she has prouard her and to see her safe--passage free--to France, where refuge and the consolations of religion, Madame, await her!”
In the silence that dropped you should have seen Mother Carron
”Refuge!” she began, e about?
Conso-- Look here Do you mean a convent?”
”Of course, Madame”
”A convent! In truth? Is this all you have to offer?”
”Yes, Mada up her arms