Piotr, sitting flat on the gravel, was engrossed in manufacturing a miniature mountain with the end of a bit of stick escaped from the gardener’s rake, and had evidently forgotten all about the discussion in hand.
The “Gamin” smiled up at Garrassime in the fashion which invariably enslaved all beholders. “Oh!” she said, half-voicedly—she did not want Piotr to hear. “I did not mean it as a reproach, Garrassime, but does not your mistress resent such sayings?”
The old man raised his eyes imploringly to the blue sky above. “When she hears! When she hears!” he murmured. “But The Illustrious sees little of the boy, Your Nobility. He is mostly with the Prince at home, or with me or his niania. He is a noble child, but vivacious and fond of his own way.”
“I see!” comprehended Marguerite. “He is very winsome, very handsome. Do you think, Garrassime, that he will not pine for his father?”
The servitor of the House of Palitzin for forty loyal years looked steadily at his master’s young cousin and nodded his wise head.
“He would without doubt have done so, were it not for Your Nobility. It is strange, for he does not make friends easily, and yet not so strange,” he added, his eyes fixed upon her; “but he has of a certainty given his blessed little heart into Your Nobility’s keeping, Excellency. God be praised for it! We will have no trouble now. He is very like his illustrious father,” he concluded, almost in a whisper, and Régis from behind his curtain saw a slow flush of deep rose spread over his “Gamin’s” fair face.
“Je ne suis décidément qu’un imbécile!” he apostrophized himself wrathfully, and noiselessly he quitted his post of observation. He had seen enough, and more than enough!
At ten o’clock that night the Marquis de Plenhöel descended the perron steps to hand Laurence from her coupé. She was marvelously gowned in dying-azure coruscated with diamond stars, and with loose-locked clusters of lilac orchids playing hide-and-seek in the lace of her train. She gave a rapid glance about her as she was being ceremoniously conducted to the great salon on the first floor, and when Régis bowed her in she asked, with an equivocal smile that made him writhe internally:
“Where is Marguerite?”
“Up-stairs in her own apartments,” he said, shortly, “taking a cup of tea with our old friend Madame de Montemare—I think you met her here some five years ago.”