“Faith, no,” said another.  “We have only seen how our young gentleman treats him.  Of course he is too proud and dainty to let a common man so much as look at him.”

They all laughed; the young gentleman seemed no favourite.

“Parbleu! that was why I drew him from the wheels, because he knocked him there,” said my preserver.  “I don’t believe there’s harm in the boy.  What meant you, lad?”

“I meant no harm,” I said, and turned sullenly off up the street.  This, then, was what I had come to Paris for—­to be denied entrance to the house, thrown under the coach-wheels, and threatened with a drubbing from the lackeys!

For three years my only thought had been to serve Monsieur.  From waking in the morning to sleep at night, my whole life was Monsieur’s.  Never was duty more cheerfully paid.  Never did acolyte more throw his soul into his service than I into mine.  Never did lover hate to be parted from his mistress more than I from Monsieur.  The journey to Paris had been a journey to Paradise.  And now, this!

Monsieur had looked me in the face and not smiled; had heard me beseech him and not answered—­not lifted a finger to save me from being mangled under his very eyes.  St. Quentin and Paris were two very different places, it appeared.  At St. Quentin Monsieur had been pleased to take me into the chateau and treat me to more intimacy than he accorded to the high-born lads, his other pages.  So much the easier, then, to cast me off when he had tired of me.  My heart seethed with rage and bitterness against Monsieur, against the sentry, and, more than all, against the young Comte de Mar, who had flung me under the wheels.

I had never before seen the Comte de Mar, that spoiled only son of M. le Duc’s, who was too fine for the country, too gay to share his father’s exile.  Maybe I was jealous of the love his father bore him, which he so little repaid.  I had never thought to like him, St. Quentin though he were; and now that I saw him I hated him.  His handsome face looked ugly enough to me as he struck me that blow.

I went along the Paris streets blindly, the din of my own thoughts louder than all the noises of the city.  But I could not remain in this trance forever, and at length I woke to two unpleasant facts:  first, I had no idea where I was, and, second, I should be no better off if I knew.

Never, while there remained in me the spirit of a man, would I go back to Monsieur; never would I serve the Comte de Mar.  And it was equally obvious that never, so long as my father retained the spirit that was his, could I return to St. Quentin with the account of my morning’s achievements.  It was just here that, looking at the business with my father’s eyes, I began to have a suspicion that I had behaved like an insolent young fool.  But I was still too angry to acknowledge it.

Remained, then, but one course—­to stay in Paris, and keep from starvation as best I might.