“Oh!” she cried. “Here is Grandpapa—such a venerable Grandpapa! Pull his mustache, Pavlo, junior—a corn-colored mustache, too, as silky as your hair, baby mine! Isn’t it a scandal to look so indecently youthful, my father dear?”
Régis laughed. He certainly did not give a very grandfatherly impression, for he stubbornly refused to become even middle-aged, and was still the beau-sabreur and passionate sportsman he had always been. His daughter’s ideal existence with Basil was an everlasting joy to him, and now he beamed upon the little group on the terrace. Suddenly his smile disappeared.
“Look out, Chevalier!” he said, precipitately; and to Pavlo’s immense astonishment Marguerite hastily put his small namesake down on the blanket, looking almost fearfully over her shoulder.
“Don’t praise the baby before Piotr!” she whispered to him. “I’ll explain later.”
His mouth wide open with astonishment, the young Garde-à-Cheval saw Piotr emerge at a lively trot from the long flight of stone steps leading up from a lower terrace and fly like a dart toward him—Piotr transformed into a big boy in long sailor-trousers, a nautical blouse, and a béret, with the words La Mauve in gold gleaming on its ribbon, thrust well to the back of his head.
“Hallo, Cousin Pavlo!” the boy cried. “They told me you had come, so I ran as fast as I could!” And doffing his béret in right gallant fashion, he held out his brown hand in greeting.
“Saperlipopette!” exclaimed Pavlo. “The heir of the House of Palitzin leaves nothing to be desired, it seems to me.”
With an amusing tilt of his eminently patrician nose Piotr looked his cousin up and down, and, preternaturally solemn, declared, “Neither does the heir of the House of Salvières!”
There was a general burst of merriment.
“This comes,” Régis gravely pronounced, as soon as he could speak, “of being brought up entirely among grown people. One knows one’s ropes early.”