“We can eat them for the second breakfast, can’t we?”
“Not can; must!” she corrected, gravely. “They’re good only when fresh off the farm, you know, Moussaillon.”
“I like it when you call me Moussaillon, little darling Malou,” the boy said, proudly. “Don’t you think I am a wonderful sailor already? And as to swimming and fishing!” He smacked his rosy lips ecstatically, glancing up at her for confirmation of these tall words.
“A wonderful sailor—a swimmer of extraordinary power—and as to a fisherman!” she mimicked, her lovely face crinkling into a grimace that well suited her name of “Gamin.”
“You’re laughing at me! But I handle the avirons almost as well as Boustifaille. You know I do.”
“Boustifaille” was Piotr’s canot boy, a wide-awake lad of fourteen, who was to ship next May on a “Banker,” and Marguerite smiled at the boastfulness of Master Piotr; although, to do him justice, the child was a born seaman, fearless as a porpoise, and inclined to be utterly reckless of any danger.
For these particular traits she knew herself to be responsible. She had been and was his constant companion and instructor in the arts of natation, rowing, sailing, and fishing, and never tired of encouraging him to display further prowess. The life of Piotr at Plenhöel was ideal, between “Antinoüs,” who had come to love the boy almost as if he were his own, and Marguerite, his best and most devoted comrade. In return, nothing could be more touching than Piotr’s fealty to his lady. There were times, it is true—during his less and less frequent fits of rage—when even she could not manage him. But usually for a mere touch of her hand, a slightly sterner glance from her blue eyes, he really tried to calm himself—with more or less success, it is true, but still with extraordinary determination for one so young.
The chief difficulty with him was to conquer his ever-present jealousy. Perhaps Laurence had only partly assumed the rôle of a jealous woman. Probably she was really inclined that way, and had needed only a trifling exaggeration to serve her purpose, for her son was, unfortunately for him and for others, abnormally provided with that sad faculty for making every being dear to one entirely miserable. Let Marguerite display the least bit of enthusiasm, or flattering appreciation, toward anyone, a puppy-dog even, and Piotr would be at once convulsed with fury. He did not sulk; he stormed whole-souledly; he threw himself on the ground and he rolled over and over, shrieking aloud, beating his head on the floor, tearing his hair, actually foaming at the mouth; and so painful were these outbreaks that they were considered at Plenhöel as visitations to be avoided by every possible means.
“If he were mine,” the village doctor, a retired surgeon-major of the navy, often said, “I’d make him acquainted with a rope’s end, and that without delay. Is it possible to see a youngster get himself into such states and remain neutral? Only mademoiselle is capable of it, but she’s an angel of God. Besides, she’d crawl through a knothole to please him.”
Perchance the doctor was right, perhaps he was wrong, in his particular choice of a remedy, but, be it as it may, Marguerite would not hear of drastic measures; in which opinion her father bore her out, for, as he sagely remarked, with such an organization it was impossible to know what brute force might produce.