”‘It is like her,’ he said. ‘I wish it was mine.’
”‘It was Pierrot made me sit still,’ said Edmée; ‘he told me stories all the time. He knows such pretty stories.’
“Edmond glanced at Pierre with some approach to amiability for the first time. At that moment, through the open window, the Countess heard her husband’s voice calling her. She turned quickly away.
”‘I must go,’ she said. ‘Edmée, take care of your cousin, and try to amuse him. Pierre will, I know, help you.’
“The children made their way down into the garden. Then, after all, Edmond condescended to look at the rabbits, and to give his opinion of things in general. It was less pretty, he said, here at Valmont than at his own home of Sarinet, where the flower garden was very magnificent, laid out and managed by foreign gardeners—‘not by these stupid louts of ours,’ he added, contemptuously.
“Pierre’s face flushed, but he said nothing. He felt on his honour bound to resent nothing the querulous little lord of Sarinet might say or do, for had not his dear lady trusted him—him, Pierre Germain—to help Edmée to amuse the guest. But Edmée was little accustomed to check or restrain her feelings, and she at once took her cousin to task.
”‘I don’t know what “louts” means,’ she said; ‘we never hear those words here, but our people are not stupid, whatever yours are. And I don’t care how grand your gardens at Sarinet are. I should never like it as well as Valmont. Here everybody is happy and contented. I know it is not so at Sarinet.’
“Edmond laughed contemptuously.
”‘At Sarinet people are kept in their proper places,’ he said. ‘We don’t have low fellows like that’—and he flung a little cane he held in his hand at Pierre—‘consorting with ladies and gentlemen.’
“The cane struck Pierre on the cheek, and for an instant the pain was sharp, but it was not that that made him start forward with clenched hands and glowing eyes—he minded pain as little as any one—it was the insult, for he and his had not been used to such treatment; they had not been ground down by insolence and oppression, and the first contact with such things was bitter to him. Put almost as quickly as he had started forward he drew back again, and passing his hand over his eyes, where the tears were springing, he turned away.