“Oh, it’s you, my little gentleman!” he exclaimed, smiling to show all his firm teeth, as white and even as a court beauty’s.  He looked in the best of humours, as was not wonderful, considering that he was engaged in fastening up in the breast of his doublet something hard and lumpy.  M. Etienne held up a packet for me to see, before Peyrot’s shielding body; it was tied with red cord and sealed with a spread falcon over the tiny letters, Je reviendrai.  In the corner was written very small, St. Q. Smiling, he put it into the breast of his doublet.

“Monsieur,” my scamp said to him with close lips that the room might not hear, “you are a gentleman.  If there ever comes a day when You-know-who is down and you are up, I shall be pleased to serve you as well as I have served him.”

“I hanker not for such service as you have given him,” M. Etienne answered.  Peyrot’s eyes twinkled brighter than ever.

“I have said it.  I will serve you as vigourously as I have served him.  Bear me in mind, monsieur.”

“Come, Felix,” was all my lord’s answer.

Peyrot sprang forward to detain us.

“Monsieur, will you not dine with me?  Both of you, I beg.  I will have every wine the cellar affords.”

“No,” said M. Etienne, carelessly, not deigning to anger; “but there is my dinner for you, an you like.  I have paid for it, but I have other business than to eat it.”

Bidding a waiter serve M. Peyrot, he walked from the room without other glance at him.  A slight shade fell over the reckless, scampish face; he was a moment vexed that we scorned him.  Merely vexed, I think; shamed not at all; he knew not the feel of it.  Even in the brief space I watched him, as I passed to the door, his visage cleared, and he sat him down contentedly to finish M. Etienne’s veal broth.

My lord paced along rapidly and gladly, on fire to be before Monsieur with the packet.  But one little cloud, transient as Peyrot’s, passed across his lightsome countenance.

“I would that knave were of my rank,” he said.  “I had not left him without slapping a glove in his face.”

That Peyrot had come off scot-free put me out of patience, too, but I regretted the gold we had given him more than the wounds we had not.  The money, on the contrary, troubled M. Etienne no whit; what he had never toiled for he parted with lightly.

We came to our gates and went straightway up the stairs to Monsieur’s cabinet.  He sprang to meet us at the door, snatching the packet from his son’s eager hand.

“Well done, Etienne, my champion!  An you brought me the crown of France I were not so pleased!”

The flush of joy at generous praise of good work kindled on M. Etienne’s cheek; it were hard to say which of the two messieurs beamed the more delightedly on the other.

“My son, you have brought me back my honour,” spoke Monsieur, more quietly, the exuberance of his delight abating, but leaving him none the less happy.  “If you had sinned against me—­which I do not admit, dear lad—­it were more than made up for now.”