Mario did not know what being a gentleman was. He was unquestionably very far advanced for his age, and for the period and the environment in which he had been reared; but, in every other direction than religion, morality and languages, he was a genuine little savage, having no conception of the society which the marquis invited him to enter.
He saw in the proposal nothing but ribbons, sweetmeats, pet dogs, and beautiful rooms filled with bibelots, which he took for toys. His eyes shone with ingenuous greed, and Bois-Doré, who was as ingenuous as he in his way, cried:
"Vive Dieu! Master Jovelin, this child was born to high station. Did you see how his eyes sparkled at the word gentleman? Come, Mario, ask Mercedes to remain with us."
"And me too!" said the child, naturally assuming that the offer was made first of all to his adopted mother.
"You and she," replied Bois-Doré; "I know that it would be very cruel to separate you."
Mario, overjoyed, hastened to say to the Moorish woman in Arabic, covering her with kisses:
"Mother, we are not to travel the highroads any more. This kind lord is going to keep us here in his fine house!"
Mercedes expressed her thanks with a sigh.
"The child is not mine," she said, "he is God's, who has placed him in my care. I must seek his family until I find it. If his family no longer exists, or does not want him, I will return here, and on my knees I will say to you: 'Take him and turn me away if you will. I prefer to weep alone outside the door of the house where he lives and is happy, than to make him beg his bread any more."
"This woman has a noble heart," said the marquis. "We will assist her with our money and our influence to find the persons she is seeking; but why does she not tell us what she knows of them? Perhaps we shall be able to assist her at once when we know the child's family name."