At the mention of his father Piotr grew still and glanced up at Marguerite between his long dark lashes. “Piotr loves papa!” he stoutly declared in Russian. “Piotr wants to see papa, not mamma. Piotr hates mamma!” “Oh, baby!” exclaimed the deeply shocked Marguerite. “You mustn’t say that! Your mamma is so beautiful!” She had put him down on the gravel walk under Régis’s window; but she did not see her father, who had dropped the lace curtain before him. He was curious to see how this would end. “Malou is beautiful, not mamma!” the young insubordinate gravely responded, planted in front of his new passion, both small fists clenched and hanging at his sides. “Mamma scolds Piotr always. Ask Garrassime. Bring him here, Malou; and ask _niania_, too!” Marguerite glanced quickly toward the house. The _niania_ (nurse) was not in sight; but Garrassime, the ever-faithful, who never remained far away from his beloved charge, was lurking behind a clump of rhododendrons, and at a sign from her advanced and uncovered his gray head. “Does Prince Pierre often talk like this?” she asked, rather sadly. “Alas! Your Nobility,” the old servitor replied, “it does happen; I grieve to say. Your Excellency must pardon him, he means no harm. He does not understand what he says.” 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.