But ten minutes later he was calling for honey, declaring that he could not eat his roll and butter without it, and joining in the conversation. He could no longer endure the agony of holding his tongue; besides, he remembered the thousand francs Toto had promised him if he conducted himself decorously and with discretion.
“I know where we will go!” cried the Prince.
“Barbizon?” queried Gaillard, putting six lumps of sugar in his coffee.
“No, Montmorency; the chestnut trees will look splendid to-day. They are not in flower yet; but no matter—one cannot have everything.”
“True,” said Gaillard, trying to ogle Célestin and failing, for she was entirely engrossed with Toto and the bread and butter; “one cannot have everything. We will go to Montmorency, and sit beneath the chestnut trees and tell each other fairy tales.”
“Oh, how delightful!” murmured Célestin.
“I will tell you the tale of the giant and the dwarf,” resumed Gaillard. “It is my own—one of a series of fin-de-siècle fairy tales I am writing for Lévy. There is a terrible battle in it, and the giant beats the dwarf. In the olden tales the dwarf beats the giant invariably, but I have changed all that. The giant in my story is the type of sin; he pelts the dwarf with roses, nothing more; the dwarf replies with mud; he is Virtue, and has a hump, and is hairy. Rousseau had a châlet at Montmorency; it is there still. I will leave you two amongst the primroses whilst I go and cast a stone at it—wretched man, murderer of his own children, destroyer of the haute noblesse, progenitor of the bourgeoisie!”
“Oh, bother Rousseau!” cried the Prince, helping Célestin to more honey. “We don’t want to think of him; we want to be happy.”
“True,” said Gaillard; “you are young—we are all young; May is coming in. Désiré, a great idea has struck me: we will have a picnic. The inn at Montmorency may not be a good inn; I have my doubts about it. My children, listen to me: we will dine on the grass beneath those chestnut trees.”
“But——” objected Toto.