“Here!” the latter cried. “Take your boy. He deserves a reward, and so do you.” And he put little Pavlo hastily on his mother’s lap. “Meanwhile,” he continued, “I’ll go and keep Master Piotr away. Come with me, Pavlo, and I’ll tell you what’s amiss.” * * * * * “Little Pavlo” was undoubtedly breaking from the chrysalis of babyhood. “_Il gigotte comme un petit diable_,” Divyne, the nurse, proudly stated to Garrassime, whose proficiency in French, and even in Breton, was growing daily more remarkable. “_Il va se mettre a marcher tout à l’heure!_” declared Divyne, and Garrassime’s face was a study of mingled appreciation for his littlest master’s precocity, and of terror at the thought of the sole and only Palitzin Tyrant left--namely, Prince Piotr-the-Jealous--as Pavlo de Salvières had nicknamed him in an imprudent moment. Nor was Garrassime the only one at the _Tour du Chevalier_ who entertained that mixture of feelings, three parts delight and one part anxiety. Basil, since the day of the baby’s first attempt to talk, was at a loss what to do; Marguerite, continually pulled between her worship of her own beautiful son and her love for Piotr, was growing thin; Régis was continually on the watch; and Pavlo thought within himself that a sound flogging in the right quarter would avoid many difficulties, but, being extremely adaptable, he forebore to say so, having noticed how far more than useless such an observation would be. One rather rough afternoon, following a storm when the sea was still heaving from its recent stress, and the sky a mass of glorious white and pale-gray clouds tossing about against patches of intermittently revealed azure, Marguerite was changing from her morning gown into her riding-habit, when Divyne knocked at the door of her dressing-room and, being bidden to enter, did so, carrying the baby on her arm. A prettier child it would have been difficult to find. Dimpled like a cherub, his satiny round face crowned by an already thick crop of curls--blonde as his mother’s--and lighted by eyes of blue resembling hers quite startlingly in shape and color, he was bubbling with happy life. “Madame la Princesse,” quoth Divyne, smiling from one ear to the other, “he has just said it again--Malou--and laugh! Oh, _ma doué_, he laughed so one could have heard him as far as the semaphore!”