The Chevalier laughed.

“They haven’t tamed you, then?” The marquis drew circles in the spilled salt.  “Have you become . . . great and respected?”

The thrust went deep.  A pallor formed under the Chevalier’s tan.  “I have made some progress, Monsieur.  If any laugh, they do so behind my back.”

The marquis nodded approvingly.

“Have you come all this journey to mock me?”

“Well,” the father confessed, “I do not like the way you say ’you’.”

They rested.  The marquis breathed the easier of the two.

“Monsieur, I have not much time to spare.  What has brought you here?”

“Why am I here?  I have come to do my flesh and blood a common justice.  In France you did not give me time.”

“Justice?” ironically.  “Is that not a new word in your vocabulary?”

“I have always known the word; there were some delicate shades which I overlooked.  I lied to you.”

The Chevalier started.

“It was a base lie, unworthy of a gentleman and a father.”  The marquis fumbled at his lips.  “The lie has kept me rather wakeful.  Anger burns quickly, and the ashes are bitter.  I am a proud man, but there is no flaw in my pride.  You are my lawful son.”

“What!  Have you gone to the trouble of having me legitimatized?” with a terrible laugh.

“I shall never lose my temper again,” retorted the father, a ghost of a smile parting his thin lips.  “Let us put aside antagonism for the present.  Let us analyze my action.  Why should I go to the trouble of having your title adjusted by parliamentary law?  I am too old for Paris; Paris shall see me no more.  Am I a man to run after sentimentality?  You will scarce accuse me of that weakness.  Were you aught but what you are, I should be dining in Rochelle, with all my accustomed comforts.  You are successor to my titles.  Believe me or not, as to that I am totally indifferent.  I am doing what my sense of justice demands.  That is sufficient for me.  The night of the day you took passage on the Saint Laurent I called to the hotel those whilom friends of yours and charged them on the pain of death to stop a further spread to your madness.  Scarce a dozen in Rochelle know; Paris is wholly ignorant.  Your revenues in the Cevennes are accumulating.  Return to France, or remain here to become . . . great and respected; that is no concern of mine.  To tell you these facts I have crossed the Atlantic.  There can be no maudlin sentiment between you and me; there have been too many harsh words.  That is all I have to say.  Digest it well.”

Silence.  A breeze, blowing in through a window, stirred the flames of the candles, and their lines of black smoke wavered horizontally through the air.  Monsieur le Marquis waited for the outpouring of thanks, the protestations of joy, the bending of this proud and haughty spirit.  While waiting he did not look at his son; rather he busied himself with the stained ruffles of his sleeve.  The pause grew.  It was so long that the marquis was compelled finally to look up.  In his cabinet at Perigny he had a small bronze statue of the goddess Ate:  the scowling eyes, the bent brows, the widened nostrils, the half-visible row of teeth, all these he saw in the face towering above him.