“It’s not nonsense,” retorted Louis earnestly. “It’s quite true. Mademoiselle de Larny cried, and my aunt too. I remember it quite well.” Indeed the reminiscences with which the Vicomte, occasionally and quite innocently, regaled the family dinner-table had sometimes to be checked in mid-career. That tendency afforded the Marquise deep cause for thankfulness at her husband’s act in removing him from his Parisian surroundings. “You can’t remember what’s impossible,” said Gilbert with decision. “You made a mistake—or else you’re inventing. You were only a little boy then.” “I was not a little boy!” retorted Louis, flushing. “It was only last year. I shall ask my aunt.” He went off whistling, tried to induce one of the men to lend him a flail, and then returned to his cousin to announce confidentially that he intended to teach the baby to ride a bullock. It was fortunate for the Comtesse d’Aucourt that her daughter was as yet too young really to run any risk of undergoing this instruction. Louis found to his annoyance that a child of two years old is scarcely steady enough on its legs to be a reliable playmate, and is, moreover, never to be met without a nurse in attendance. Yet for a time Mademoiselle Lucienne was as interesting as a new kitten, and he smiled on her even when she plunged tenacious hands into his curls. Since, after all, she cried very little, he was once more reduced to speculation as to the grounds on which the possession of so pleasing a toy could ever be deprecated. Having no fear of strangers he applied to Madame d’Aucourt for enlightenment, but she referred him to the Marquise, and Madame de Château-Foix put him off with that annoying evasion that he would “know when he was older.” Louis then tried to pin down his aunt to a statement of the epoch when he should be considered to have attained the desired longevity—next year, when he would be nine?—the year after, then? He failed in his attempt, but not until the Marquise had been driven nearly desperate in her efforts to elude him.