spread out, and in his coating of tan looked like some great shaggy dog. His eyes Paul observed for the first time—with a sudden realization of the oversight, he smiled subtly at his recent condemnation of Phœbe's carelessness with respect to his own eyes. One of the books in Aunt Verona's box had been called Les Fleurs du Mal, a series of poems for the most part incomprehensible. In one poem about a cat, he had been struck by the description of the animal's eyes—"a mixture of metal and agate." That was the quality of Mark Laval's eyes. They magnetized your gaze and then, like a clairvoyant's crystal, held it in focus. But unlike the eyes of Baudelaire's cat, Mark's eyes were kind and loyal, even when his words were unyielding.
Coming into Paul's lonely and abstracted mood, Mark was doubly welcome. He walked home with Paul after the first morning at school, which had been devoted to an announcement of the year's programme of studies. Mark, despite his bare thirteen years, was almost grown-up, and in his presence Paul felt small, yet singularly secure, as secure as he had felt with Mr. Silva. The summer in camp had increased the older boy's awkwardness, without diminishing his intensity. A certain moodiness, however, like a dark cloud, had settled over him, making Paul feel his forlornness more acutely than ever. It was to be Mark's last year at school, and already he foretasted the exclusion which withdrawal from his schoolmates must entail for him. He was like a strong swimmer setting out towards the open sea knowing the waters must ultimately close over his head.
With a blunt thumb and a blunt forefinger Mark turned the pages of a characteristically grubby copy of Evangeline and read aloud from it. His voice and his belief in the poetry had the effect of transforming a singsong tale into a glowing apotheosis of sentiment. At school Paul had taken slight interest in the tame Acadian
