Five minutes after, while Pitou was slicing up his loaf and sausage and taking a pull at his wine, a footman came out to say:
"Her ladyship, the countess of Charny, prays Captain Pitou to do her the honor to step inside instead of awaiting Master Sebastian in a hired conveyance."
The Assembly had abolished titles but the servants of the titled had not yet obeyed.
Pitou had to wipe his mouth, pack up in paper the uneaten comestibles, with a sigh, and follow the man in a maze. His astonishment doubled when he saw a lovely lady who held Sebastian in her arms and who said, as she put out her hand to the new-comer:
"Captain Pitou, you give me such great and unhoped-for joy in bringing Sebastian to me that I wanted to thank you myself."
Pitou stared, and stammered, but let the hand remain untaken.
"Take and kiss the lady's hand," prompted Sebastian: "it is my mother."
"Your mother? oh, Gemini!" exclaimed the peasant, while the other young man nodded.
"Yes, his mother," said Andrea with her glance beaming with delight: "you bring him to me after nine months' parting, and then I had only seen him once before: in the hope you will again bring him, I wish to have no secrets from you, though it would be my ruin if revealed."