The Marquise was seriously alarmed. “Gilbert! what have you done?” she exclaimed.
“It’s only his nose,” replied her son callously. “It makes a mess, but it doesn’t mean anything, you know.”
“I am ashamed of you,” said Madame de Château-Foix severely, “bitterly ashamed. How can you ill-treat a boy smaller and younger than yourself in this disgusting fashion?”
“He hasn’t been ill-treating me,” expostulated Louis through his handkerchief. “I have hit him too, haven’t I, Gilbert? Look at his eye!”
The Marquise did look, but her inexperience received more enlightenment a day or two later, when her son was going about with an eye round which many shades strove for the mastery, and when Louis’ shapely little nose also retained a decidedly swollen appearance. The Marquis laughed when he saw these signs, and pooh-poohed his wife’s remonstrances.
And indeed the two boys, considering their great dissimilarity of character, were unusually good friends. The small Vicomte, as his relatives soon discovered, was endued with a temper which was rarely ruffled. He never sulked, as Gilbert sometimes did, nor, in spite of his high spirits, did he often fly into a rage—partly, perhaps, because he seemed to get what he wanted with so little trouble. For in a quite unassertive and natural way he tyrannised over Gilbert, who, finding himself in the position of a host, continued to bestow on him delightedly many of his choicest treasures. It was the same with the menials, who adored Monsieur le Vicomte with a worship which their sense of what was due to Monsieur le Comte obliged them to keep within bounds.
Conscious of the bondage into which the household was gradually falling, and having approached her husband with small satisfaction, the Marquise one day confided to M. des Graves her fear that Louis was getting spoilt.
The Curé asked her for a definition of a spoilt child.
“I mean a child to whom every one gives way,” she answered. “Now Louis is so attractive that one gives him all he wants—and surely that is not good for him, Father?”
“Does he seem to you any the worse for it, Madame?” asked the Curé, with a little smile.