Madame frowned.

“Half the beauty you still possess . . .”

Madame laughed.  “Take care, or it will be said that Beaufort is become a wit.”

Beaufort went on serenely—­“there had been many a princeling.”

Madame contemplated the rosy horn on the tips of her fingers.  “Monsieur le Comte was rich.”

“Admitted.”

“His title was old.”

“Again admitted.  And all very well had he been only half as old as his title, this son-in-law of yours.  Your son-in-law!  It reads like one of Marguerite’s tender tales.  The daughter is three times younger than the husband who is old enough to be the father of his wife’s mother.  I must tell Scarron; he will make me laugh in retelling it.”

Madame’s lips formed for a spiteful utterance, but what she said was:  “Prison life has aged you.”

“Aged me, Madame?” reproachfully.  “I grow old?  Never.  I have found the elixir of life.”

“You will give me the recipe?” softening.

“You already possess it.”

“I?  Pray, explain.”

“We who have the faculty of learning, without the use of books, of refusing to take life seriously, of forgetting injuries,—­we never grow old.  We simply die.”

A third person would have enjoyed this blundering, unconscious irony which in no wise disturbed madame.

“The recipe is this,” continued Beaufort:  “enjoy the hours as they come; borrow not in advance, but spend the hour you have; shake the past from the shoulders like a worn-out cloak; laugh at and with your enemies; and be sure you have enemies, or life’s without salt.”

Madame gazed dreamily at the picture-lined walls.  She smiled, recalling some happy souvenir.  Presently she asked:  “And who is this Chevalier du Cevennes?”

“A capital soldier, a gay fellow, rich and extravagant.  I do not know him intimately, but I should like to.  I knew his father well.  The Marquis de Perigny was . . .”

“The Marquis de Perigny!” interrupted the duchess, half rising from her seat.  “Do you mean to tell me that the Chevalier du Cevennes is the son of the Marquis de Perigny?” For a moment her mind was confused; so many recollections awoke to life at the mention of this name.  “The Marquis de Perigny!”

Beaufort smiled.  “Yes.  Do you not recall the gay and brilliant marquis of fifteen years ago?”

Madame colored.  “You said that the past should be shaken from the shoulders like a worn-out cloak.”

“True.  Ah, but that mad marquis!” reminiscently.  “What a man he must have been in his youth!  A fatalist, for I have seen him walk into the enemy’s fire, laughing.  Handsome?  Too handsome.  Courage?  He was always fighting; he was a lion.  How we youngsters applauded him!  He told Richelieu to his face that he would be delighted to have him visit Perigny and dance the saraband before his peasant girls.  He was always breaking the edicts, and but for the king he would have spent most of his time in the Bastille.  He hasn’t been to court in ten years.”