He obeyed, still rather speechless, and when he had sat down she asked him if he had ridden or driven, whether the Rector knew that he was there, all in a quiet and unembarrassed manner. Then she suddenly bent her head and said, "Maurice, it is time that you woke up and spoke to this gentleman."
Long lashes as black as night lay on the cheeks of Maurice-Victor-Stanislas de la Roche-Guyon, and one hand grasped firmly a string of jet beads hanging from his mother's neck. His slumber was profound and determined. Tristram gazed at him, his mind in something of a whirl.
"He got tired, playing with his lamb," vouchsafed Horatia, and as she looked down at the sleeping child a most divine little smile came over her face.
The revelation of that look, and the presence of her son somehow almost deprived Tristram of the power to ask her the thousand questions about herself that were on his lips. He got out a few, in a lowered tone, and then, with little warning but a sudden drowsy stretching, Maurice awoke, and out of Armand's eyes: but bluer and more innocent, looked up straight at the visitor.
The effect was disconcerting to both. Tristram disguised his feelings, but the younger person, giving way to whatever emotion he may have felt, silently buried his head in his mother's arm.
Horatia smiled that new smile of hers, and put a kiss on the curls.
"I was so sorry that I could not come to your ordination yesterday, Tristram," she was beginning. "Papa would not let me take the long drive, but I wished very much to come..."
But just then the Rector entered, and the talk became general, even, on Horatia's side, rather disjointed, for the Comte de la Roche-Guyon, demanding to be put down, crawled meanwhile with an extraordinary rapidity about the floor, addressing in obscure terms every object that he encountered on his route, footstools, hearthrug, even the flora of the carpet. Finally he embraced with fervour one of Tristram's legs, and Tristram, after a moment or two, stooped and lifted him on to his knee. After all, he might as well accustom himself to children, though he would rather have gone to school with the child of someone else. Maurice smiled.
"Up!" he observed pertinently, and kicked out his feet with happy vigour, somewhat endangering his balance.
"He doesn't often take to people like that!" observed his mother and grandfather simultaneously, and with the usual amount of truth...