He was a frail lad, with immense brown eyes in his quaint fragile face--one of Reynolds's "Choir of Angels", with a touch of elf.

Often Miriam kneeled to the child and drew him to her.
"Eh, my Hubert!" she sang, in a voice heavy and surcharged with love.
"Eh, my Hubert!" And, folding him in her arms, she swayed slightly from side to side with love, her face half lifted, her eyes half closed, her voice drenched with love.
"Don't!" said the child, uneasy--"don't, Miriam!" "Yes; you love me, don't you ?" she murmured deep in her throat, almost as if she were in a trance, and swaying also as if she were swooned in an ecstasy of love.
"Don't!" repeated the child, a frown on his clear brow.
"You love me, don't you ?" she murmured.
"What do you make such a FUSS for ?" cried Paul, all in suffering because of her extreme emotion.

"Why can't you be ordinary with him ?" She let the child go, and rose, and said nothing.

Her intensity, which would leave no emotion on a normal plane, irritated the youth into a frenzy.

And this fearful, naked contact of her on small occasions shocked him.