Marguerite’s laughter rippled under the drooping linden branches, in her delight at the pretty perversion of her name.
“No! No!” she panted, for the boy was heavy, “Malou will not let Piotr go! What would your papa say if he saw you frightening my birds, Piotr? What do you think? Eh?”
At the mention of his father Piotr grew still and glanced up at Marguerite between his long dark lashes.
“Piotr loves papa!” he stoutly declared in Russian. “Piotr wants to see papa, not mamma. Piotr hates mamma!”
“Oh, baby!” exclaimed the deeply shocked Marguerite. “You mustn’t say that! Your mamma is so beautiful!”
She had put him down on the gravel walk under Régis’s window; but she did not see her father, who had dropped the lace curtain before him. He was curious to see how this would end.
“Malou is beautiful, not mamma!” the young insubordinate gravely responded, planted in front of his new passion, both small fists clenched and hanging at his sides. “Mamma scolds Piotr always. Ask Garrassime. Bring him here, Malou; and ask niania, too!”
Marguerite glanced quickly toward the house. The niania (nurse) was not in sight; but Garrassime, the ever-faithful, who never remained far away from his beloved charge, was lurking behind a clump of rhododendrons, and at a sign from her advanced and uncovered his gray head.
“Does Prince Pierre often talk like this?” she asked, rather sadly.
“Alas! Your Nobility,” the old servitor replied, “it does happen; I grieve to say. Your Excellency must pardon him, he means no harm. He does not understand what he says.”