Over the mantel the portrait of a woman stood out clearly and definitely.  It represented Madame la Marquise at twenty-two, when Marie de Medicis had commanded the young Rubens to paint the portrait of one of the few women who had volunteered to share her exile.  Madame lived to be only twenty-four, happily.

“Jehan, light the chandelier,” said the marquis.  His voice, if high, was still clear and strong.  “Has Monsieur le Comte ventured forth in this storm?”

“Yes, Monsieur; but he left word that he would return later with a company of friends.”

“Friends?” The marquis shrugged.  “Is that what he calls them?  When do these grasping Jesuits visit me?”

“At eight, Monsieur.  They are due this moment, unless they have failed to make the harbor.”

“And they bring the savage?  Good.  He will interest me, and I am dying of weariness.  I shall see a man again.  Arrange some chairs next to me, bring a bottle of claret, and a thousand livres from the steward’s chest.  And listen, Jehan, let Monsieur le Comte’s servant give orders to the butler for his master.  I forbid you to do it.”

“Yes, Monsieur,” and Jehan proceeded to light the chandelier, the illumination of which brought out distinctly the tarnished splendor of the salon.  Jehan retired.

The marquis, to steady his teetering head, rested his chin on his hands, which were clasped over the top of his walking-stick.  Occasionally his eyes roved to the portrait of his wife, and a melancholy, unreadable smile broke the severe line of his lips.

“A beautiful woman,” he mused aloud, “though she did not inspire me with love.  Beauty:  that is the true religion, that is the shrine of worship, as the Greeks understood it; beauty of woman.  Woman was born to express beauty, man to express strength.  We detest weakness in a man, and a homely woman is a crime.  And so De Brissac passed violently?  And his oaths of vengeance were breaths on a mirror.  Ah well, I had ceased to hate him these twenty years.  Did he love yonder woman, or was his fancy like mine, ephemeral?  And he married Mademoiselle de Montbazon?  That is droll, a kind of tentative vengeance.”

His eyes closed and he fell into a dreaming state.  Like all men who have known eventful but useless lives, the marquis lived in the past.  The future held for him nothing cut pain and death, and his thought seldom went forth to meet it.  Day after day he sat alone with his souvenirs, unmindful of the progress about him, indifferent.

When the valet returned with the wine and the livres, he placed three chairs within easy distance of the marquis, and waited to learn what further orders his master had in mind.