Three bursts of laughter came from Mistigris, the great painter, and the farmer. The count himself could not help smiling. Georges was perfectly grave.
“By Allah!” he exclaimed, “I see nothing to laugh at in that. Though it seems to me, young man, that your respectable mother is, at the present moment, not exactly in the social sphere of an ambassadress. She carried a handbag worthy of the utmost respect, and wore shoe-strings which—”
“My mother, monsieur!” exclaimed Oscar, in a tone of indignation. “That was the person in charge of our household.”
“‘Our household’ is a very aristocratic term,” remarked the count.
“Kings have households,” replied Oscar, proudly.
A look from Georges repressed the desire to laugh which took possession of everybody; he contrived to make Mistigris and the painter understand that it was necessary to manage Oscar cleverly in order to work this new mine of amusement.
“Monsieur is right,” said the great Schinner to the count, motioning towards Oscar. “Well-bred people always talk of their ‘households’; it is only common persons like ourselves who say ‘home.’ For a man so covered with decorations—”
“‘Nunc my eye, nunc alii,’” whispered Mistigris.
“—you seem to know little of the language of the courts. I ask your future protection, Excellency,” added Schinner, turning to Oscar.
“I congratulate myself on having travelled with three such distinguished men,” said the count,—“a painter already famous, a future general, and a young diplomatist who may some day recover Belgium for France.”