“The gossip, then, while I trim my nails.  Paris can not have stood still like the sun of Joshua’s time, simply because I was not here.”

“Beaufort has made up with Madame de Montbazon.”

“Even old loves can become new loves.  Go on.”

Breton recounted the other important court news, while the Chevalier nodded, or frowned, as the news affected him.

“Mademoiselle Catharine . . .”

“Has that woman been here again?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“You attended her down the stairs?”

“I did, but she behaved coarsely and threatened not to cease coming until you had established her in the millinery.”

The Chevalier roared with laughter.  “And all I did was to kiss the lass and compliment her cheeks.  There’s a warning for you, lad.”

Breton looked aggrieved.  His master’s gallantries never ceased to cause him secret unrest.

“Yesterday your quarterly remittance from Monsieur le Marquis, your father, arrived.”

“Was there a letter?” with subdued eagerness.

“There was nothing but the gold, Monsieur,” answered Breton, his eyes lowered.  How many times during the past four years had his master asked this question, always to receive the same answer?

The Chevalier’s shoulders drooped.  “Who brought it?”

“Jehan,” said the lackey.

“Had he anything to say?”

“Very little.  Monsieur le Marquis has closed the chateau in Perigny and is living at the hotel in Rochelle.”

“He mentions my name?”

“No, Monsieur.”

The Chevalier crossed the room and stood by one of the windows.  It was snowing ever so lightly.  The snow-clouds, separating at times as they rushed over the night, discovered the starry bowl of heaven.  Some noble lady’s carriage passed surrounded by flaring torches.  But the young man saw none of these things.  A sense of incompleteness had taken hold of him.  The heir to a marquisate, the possessor of an income of forty thousand livres the year, endowed with health and physical beauty, and yet there was a flaw which marred the whole.  It was true that he was light-hearted, always and ever ready for a rout, whether with women or with men, whether with wine or with dice; but under all this brave show there was a canker which ate with subtile slowness, but surely.  To be disillusioned at the age of sixteen by one’s own father!  To be given gold and duplicate keys to the wine-cellars!  To be eye-witness of Roman knights over which this father had presided like a Tiberius!

The Duchesse de Montbazon had been in her youth a fancy of the marquis, his father.  Was it not a fine stroke of irony to decide that this son of his should marry the obscure daughter of madame?—­the daughter about whom very few had ever heard?  Without the Chevalier’s sanction, miniatures had been exchanged.  When the marquis presented him with that of Mademoiselle de Montbazon, together