"Not at all, dear child!"--
In spite of this assertion he tossed his cigar out of the window. "You used to smoke yourself," he observed.
"Yes," she said, looking down at her knitting, "but since I have learned to employ my hands, I have given up smoking."
"You knit instead--It seems odd to me to see you knitting. Georges thinks you very much altered."
"I have grown old, voilà!"
"And he thinks too that you spoil me tremendously, that no mother in all Austria spoils her son as you do me."
"No other mother has such a son," the Countess said proudly.
"Oh, oh!" he laughed and took his seat beside her again.
"Nevertheless, I am not blind to your faults," she continued, "I know them all."
"And love every one of them."