The Chevalier looked at the heartbroken father and lacked courage to answer, “We shall be obliged to bring them up properly.”

“And you have never said a word of this to me, Mlle. d’Esgrignon,” added the Marquis, turning suddenly round upon Mlle. Armande.  He never addressed her as Mlle. d’Esgrignon except when he was vexed; usually she was called “my sister.”

“Why, monsieur, when a young man is full of life and spirits, and leads an idle life in a town like this, what else can you expect?” asked Mlle. d’Esgrignon.  She could not understand her brother’s anger.

“Debts! eh! why, hang it all!” added the Chevalier.  “He plays cards, he has little adventures, he shoots,—­all these things are horribly expensive nowadays.”

“Come,” said the Marquis, “it is time to send him to the King.  I will spend to-morrow morning in writing to our kinsmen.”

“I have some acquaintance with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Lenoncourt, de Maufrigneuse, and de Chaulieu,” said the Chevalier, though he knew, as he spoke, that he was pretty thoroughly forgotten.

“My dear Chevalier, there is no need of such formalities to present a d’Esgrignon at court,” the Marquis broke in.—­“A hundred thousand livres,” he muttered; “this Chesnel makes very free.  This is what comes of these accursed troubles.  M. Chesnel protects my son.  And now I must ask him. . . .  No, sister, you must undertake this business.  Chesnel shall secure himself for the whole amount by a mortgage on our lands.  And just give this harebrained boy a good scolding; he will end by ruining himself if he goes on like this.”

The Chevalier and Mlle. d’Esgrignon thought these words perfectly simple and natural, absurd as they would have sounded to any other listener.  So far from seeing anything ridiculous in the speech, they were both very much touched by a look of something like anguish in the old noble’s face.  Some dark premonition seemed to weigh upon M. d’Esgrignon at that moment, some glimmering of an insight into the changed times.  He went to the settee by the fireside and sat down, forgetting that Chesnel would be there before long; that Chesnel, of whom he could not bring himself to ask anything.

Just then the Marquis d’Esgrignon looked exactly as any imagination with a touch of romance could wish.  He was almost bald, but a fringe of silken, white locks, curled at the tips, covered the back of his head.  All the pride of race might be seen in a noble forehead, such as you may admire in a Louis XV., a Beaumarchais, a Marechal de Richelieu, it was not the square, broad brow of the portraits of the Marechal de Saxe; nor yet the small hard circle of Voltaire, compact to overfulness; it was graciously rounded and finely moulded, the temples were ivory tinted and soft; and mettle and spirit, unquenched by age, flashed from the brilliant eyes.  The Marquis had the Conde nose and the lovable Bourbon mouth,