Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/352



F I had been in Mattia's place, I should perhaps have had as much imagination as he, but I felt in my position that it was wrong for me to have such thoughts. It had been proved beyond a doubt that Mr. Driscoll was my father. I could not look at the matter from the same point of view as Mattia. He might doubt... but I must not. When he tried to make me believe as he did, I told him to be silent. But he was pig-headed and I was not always able to get the better of his obstinacy.

"Why are you dark and all the rest of the family fair?" he would ask repeatedly.

"How was it that poor people could dress their baby in fine laces and embroidery?" was another often repeated question. And I could only reply by putting a question myself.

"Why did they search for me if I was not their child? Why had they given money to Barberin and to Greth and Galley?"

Mattia could find no answer to my question and yet he would not be convinced.

"I think we should both go back to France," he urged.