So one very fine day, “once upon a time,” as the good Perrault tells us in his Contes de Fées, the prince and his princess returned from afar, and lo, and behold! the keys of the citadel were presented to them by their leal son and maître-du-palais on a velvet cushion that he held on bended knee—Piotr in azure velvet, his curls falling on a broad lace collar, his plumed bonnet in one sunburnt hand—a dauphin after their own heart.
Régis felt as if his “Gamin” had been spirited away for eons upon eons of time, but there she was again, close to him; so “Antinoüs” looked more “Antinouistic” than ever.
Months of happiness followed; days woven of silk and gold (tissus de soie et d’or), as the good saying goes, cloudless, enchanting; “almost too perfect to be real,” mused Basil. Had he deserved it all? Presumably, since they were his and hers and Régis’s and Piotr’s; Piotr glorying in his father’s reconquered love, in the constant tenderness of his little darling Malou.
One late afternoon he rushed into the octagonal salon where she sat often now before her embroidery-frame or at her spinnet, like those ladies of the long ago who had preceded her at the Tour du Chevalier. Greatly to Piotr’s chagrin she did not gallop in the forest with him now, nor canoe on the inlet below the Castle, nor undertake those league-long rambles over the moors that he was so fond of. She was, however, if possible, more tender than ever to him, and this consoled him somewhat.
“You are getting so lazy, little darling Malou!” he cried, throwing on her lap an armful of almond-scented white-and-pink thorn he had wrenched from its prickly fastness with some damage to his strong little fingers. “Why don’t you come out and play with me and Papa? We are throwing the paume—like Henri-Quatre and his gentlemen.”
Marguerite laughed. “Come here, Piotr,” she said, making room for him on the broad window-seat beside her. “I want to speak to you, my son.”
“Isn’t it funny, little darling Malou? It’s true I am your son now! Just as Cousin Pavlo is Aunt Tatiana’s; but I’m your comrade and playfellow the same as I always was, and you love me better than any, any one else in the world.”
“I love your Papa, too,” she said, smiling, “and my own Papa, and Pavlo’s Papa—such a lot of Papas!”
“Yes, but I don’t mind that; they’re all big gentlemen, and you can’t love them as you do your little Piotr. Can you?”