She raised her shoulders imperceptibly, nodding toward the child. Salvières moved to Garrassime’s side and firmly took Piotr from him, and at his touch the boy suddenly ceased fighting.
“Tell me, Piotr,” Salvières said, very calmly sitting him down on his knee, “why do you act like this?”
“I want papa!” gulped Piotr, swallowing his tears. “I want little darling Malou!”
“You do! Well, there’s no harm in that; but what makes you ask for them in such an unmanly way?”
Piotr drew himself up, and, slipping from his uncle’s knee, stood, still shaking and trembling, before him, his eyes opened to their widest extent.
“Unmanly!” he glumly repeated. “I am not unmanly, Uncle Jean.”
“Ah, but yes you are, and you who wish to be a soldier, too! Don’t you know that it is only women who cry and stamp their feet and go off the handle like this?”
“Thanks!” murmured Tatiana, who felt much relieved already.
“Women,” pronounced Salvières, dictatorially; “all women, excepting your aunt Tatiana, of course!”
“And little darling Malou,” came from the young unregenerate, one thumb in his mouth, and the shadow of a roguish smile dawning through his tears like watery sunshine at the close of a violent rain-storm.