“And you have just returned from Rome?  Ah, what a terrible ride!”

“Abominable, Mignon.”

“And I see you hungry!” She sighed, and her black eyes grew moist and tender.  Madame Boisjoli was only thirty-two.  She was young.

“But alive, Mignon, alive; don’t forget that.”

“You have had adventures?” eagerly; for she was a woman who loved the recital of exploits.  Monsieur Boisjoli had fallen as a soldier at Charenton.

“Adventures?  Oh, as they go,” slapping his rapier and his pockets which had recently been very empty.

“You have been wounded?”

“Only in the pockets, dear, and in the tender quick of comfort.  And will you have Charlot hasten that pie?  I can smell it from afar, and my mouth waters.”

“This moment, Monsieur;” and she flew away to the kitchens.

The Chevalier took this temporary absence as an opportunity to look about him.  Only one table was occupied.  This occupant was a priest who was gravely dining off black bread and milk served in a wooden bowl.  But for the extreme pallor of his skin, which doubtless had its origin in the constant mortification of the flesh, he would have been a singularly handsome man.  His features were elegantly designed, but it was evident that melancholy had recast them in a serious mold.  His face was clean-shaven, and his hair clipped, close to the skull.  There was something eminently noble in the loftiness of the forehead, and at the same time there was something subtly cruel in the turn of the nether lip, as though the spirit and the flesh were constantly at war.  He was young, possibly not older than the Chevalier, who was thirty.

The priest, as if feeling the Chevalier’s scrutiny, raised his eyes.  As their glances met, casually in the way of gratifying a natural curiosity, both men experienced a mental disturbance which was at once strange and annoying.  Those large, penetrating grey eyes; each seemed to be looking into his own as in a mirror.

The Chevalier was first to disembarrass himself.  “A tolerably shrewd night, Monsieur,” he said with a friendly gesture.

“It is the frost in the air, my son,” the priest responded in a mellow barytone.  “May Saint Ignatius listen kindly to the poor.  Ah, this gulf you call Paris, I like it not.”

“You are but recently arrived?” asked the Chevalier politely.

“I came two days ago.  I leave for Rouen this night.”

“What! you travel at night, and leave a cheery tavern like this?” All at once the crinkle of a chill ran across the Chevalier’s shoulders.  The thumb, the forefinger and the second of the priest’s left hand were twisted, reddened stumps.

“Yes, at night; and the wind will be rough, beyond the hills.  But I have suffered worse discomforts;” and to this statement the priest added a sour smile.  He had seen the shudder.  He dropped the maimed hand below the level of the table.