A Good Child After All

The boy's haughty, cold expression looked as practiced at pushing people away as it did at anything else. Fortunately, however, he said nothing. Instead, he let his gaze slide slowly downward, taking Dolores in piece by piece, from top to bottom.

Dolores hesitated, wondering whether she ought to speak first. Wasn't it proper for a gentleman to address a lady before she spoke to him? The thought flickered through her mind and dissolved just as quickly. The boy was bourgeois, and considering the level of refinement her father had taught her to expect from Belloff's mercantile classes, it was better not to hope for such courtesies.

So she steeled herself, and the moment she opened her mouth to speak—

"Why are you sitting here?"

The boy spoke first. Dolores blinked once, then tilted her head with studied nonchalance.

"It's rude to ask a lady that sort of thing."

It was an imitation of the way Anaïs talked. Once it was out, she realized it sounded like an awkward affectation, a pose struck by someone who didn't quite know how to hold it.

Unable to escape the boy's gaze, Dolores held out for a moment under it before finally deciding on honesty.

"I wanted to see you again."

"Why?"

"Your playing was good."

A brief silence.

"...So what."

The answer at the end of it was flat, without a flicker of pleasure at the compliment. If it had been her, she'd have been beside herself with joy at hearing such a thing. Dolores began to wonder whether Xavier had simply failed to understand what she meant, and dropped a hint as casually as she could manage.

"I was complimenting your playing. Didn't you get that?"

Something in the boy's gaze shifted, subtly. No answer came.

Dolores found her own lips pressing shut without her meaning them to. Feeling as though she'd somehow done something wrong, she lowered her head and let her eyes fall, her gaze darting about restlessly. Then she spoke again—because changing the subject seemed the only way out.

"Did you come here for fun?"

The boy didn't answer right away; then he gave the smallest shrug of his shoulders.

"...Something like that."

"Something like that?"

"My brother wanted to go out and play."

He turned his eyes away. The reason Xavier had claimed a spot before the stage today was that his older brother, Luka Bransen, had stubbornly insisted he would perform on the flute.

"There's nothing to do in Aquigneux. It's boring to death."

The last words came in the voice of someone who truly might die of boredom. Despite the boy's indifference, Dolores found she didn't mind it at all. If anything, it made her want to know a little more. She summoned a little more courage.

"Your brother—he's the one who was with you that time, right? Luka."

"Say that and you sound like our little sister."

"We're the same age, you and me. And you don't have a little sister. Did you ever?"

At her eager, animated follow-up, something faint flickered across Xavier's mouth. It was too ambiguous to call a smile—a sly, cagey sort of expression.

"Do you know the names of that family's cousins, too, maybe? Things like that?"

"I didn't hear that much."

"From where, then?"

His tone was matter-of-fact, but his gaze had grown a shade sharper.

"My ballet teacher. She was a famous ballerina—she said she'd performed on stages in Lange, and she had patrons, too. She knows all sorts of good things about your family."

As she spoke, her shoulders straightened without any real reason to. It was as if Marguerite's accomplishments had become her own; Dolores felt her heart swell with pride on her teacher's behalf.

"She performed in Lange? What was her name?"

"Marguerite Salle. Until recently she was a member of the Aquigneux Public Dance Troupe."

"The ballerina Aunt Anne invited."

Dolores froze. To brush off Madame Anne Roux as simply "Aunt Anne."

"How do you know Madame Anne Roux?"

"She's in the same circle as our parents. It goes back quite a while—the Roux family and ours."

The boy added, perfectly casual:

"Aunt Anne's been fond of us since we were little. Me most of all."

It didn't sound like bragging. He stated it the way one states that the sky is blue—and that made it stranger still.

Dolores was at a loss for words for a moment before she collected herself and parted her lips.

"That's... probably because you play the violin—"

"No. It's because Aunt Anne has no son. Luka's out of the question as the eldest of our house, and Damien has a rotten personality and an even worse head on his shoulders. So she wants me. You know who Damien is, don't you?"

For no reason she could name, Dolores felt embarrassed at that. Her cheeks grew warm and red.

"Your... younger brother?"

"That's right."

Xavier laughed briefly. It was only a moment, but it was a smile that felt, unexpectedly, kind. Seizing that small gap as though it might close at any second, Dolores spoke up.

"I have a little brother too."

Xavier stared at her blankly, wearing the expression of so what do you want me to do about it.

Just then, his brother Luka took the stage.

Unlike Xavier, Luka greeted the audience with a bright, beaming smile. A few jokes, and then he began his flute performance.

And... to put it in a word or two, it was a sorry, wretched flute performance.

But Dolores found herself in a good mood all the same. Luka was, truly, a terrible and hopeless performer—yet even playing like that, he looked happy.

"You said you came for fun, right? My brother doesn't even know what he's doing. He just likes the attention. Even attention that's completely predictable."

"...Wow."

"Wow—do you mean that? It's a total mess."

Xavier said it flatly, eyes narrowed to slits.

"That can't even be called playing. I don't understand it myself, but—it's his hobby. Playing the clown before a crowd, voluntarily."

"...For someone speaking so badly of clowns, you must really love your brother?"

Xavier gazed at her in silence, as though observing some unanticipated phenomenon.

A few seconds.

Then he asked:

"You look at me like that, all wide-eyed and moved, and then you come out with that?"

Dolores answered honestly.

"Luka's skill is bad."

"Wow. I've never met someone who didn't just say 'not great' but went straight to 'bad.'"

"I have ears too, you know. Pretty good ones, I'd say. Luka has no talent."

"Wholeheartedly agreed."

"But he doesn't seem like someone who especially wants to be good."

Xavier raised an eyebrow, interested.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He seems like someone who plays because he loves it, not because he's good at it."

Dolores thought for a moment, then chose her words carefully.

"You can just feel how much he loves it. So he doesn't seem like the kind of person trying to play well—he seems like the kind who plays because it makes him happy."

Xavier, who had been studying her for a long moment, let the corner of his mouth lift, very slightly. It was a rare thing—an unguarded, unadorned smile.

"Then why was my playing good?"

"You didn't think your own playing was good?"

"...It's not so much that."

Xavier trailed off, for no clear reason.

"Although—didn't you make a mistake or two?"

"What?"

"In the middle."

"I did not."

"You did. Moonlight by Camille Ravel—I know that piece well enough myself."

Xavier looked at her as though she were being utterly ridiculous.

It had been a tiny slip, barely noticeable at all. No—it hardly counted as a mistake. There were times when he played with so little care that it became what he called "Xavier-style playing," and that was what he meant: a misplaced beat, a clumsy turn of technique.

"I told you. My ears happen to be good."

He was glaring at her, thoroughly annoyed, and Dolores smiled sweetly back at him.

"Thank you, Xavier."

"For what now?"

"For comforting me, that day."

Xavier started absently to look away—then stopped himself.

"I was sad because of my mother. But because of you, I was okay again."

"Why did your mother make you sad that day?"

"...It snowed a lot, remember? So she couldn't come get me."

"And that's something to be sad about?"

"It might sound stupid, but... I was just scared."

Dolores's voice grew smaller and smaller.

Only after saying it out loud did regret come washing over her for no good reason. She felt a little ashamed that she had once cried because a mother with two younger children and a husband to care for hadn't been able to come for her in the snow.

And then, a moment later, Xavier said this:

"That could happen."

Dolores lifted her head. There was nothing of teasing in Xavier's face, nothing of mockery. He looked like someone who simply saw no reason he shouldn't be able to understand her feelings.

Drawing her knees up slowly, resting her chin upon them, Dolores murmured, barely audibly:

"I thought... you were a good kid, too."