“I challenged the vicomte, and he refused to fight.”

“On my account?” sternly.  “You did wrong.”

“I can not change the heat of my blood,” carelessly.

“No; but you can lose it, and at present it is very precious to me.  He refused?  The vicomte has sound judgment.”

“Oh, he and I shall be killing each other one of these fine days; but not wholly on your account, Paul,” gloom wrinkling his brow, as if the enlightening finger of prescience had touched it.  “It is fully one o’clock; you will be wanting sleep.”

“Sleep?” The ironist twisted his mouth.  “It will be many a day ere sleep makes contest with my eyes . . . unless it be cold and sinister sleep.  Sleep?  You are laughing!  Only the fatuous and the self-satisfied sleep . . . and the dead.  So be it.”  He took the tongs and stirred the log, from which flames suddenly darted.  “I wonder what they are doing at Voisin’s to-night?” irrelevantly.  “There will be some from the guards, some from the musketeers, and some from the prince’s troops.  And that little Italian who played the lute so well!  Do you recall him?  I can see them now, calling Mademoiselle Pauline to bring Voisin’s old burgundy.”  The Chevalier continued his reminiscence in silence, forgetting time and place, forgetting Victor, who was gazing at him with an expression profoundly sad.

The poet mused for a moment, then tiptoed from the room.  An idea had come to him, but as yet it was not fully developed.

“Should I have said ‘good night’?  Good night, indeed!  What mockery there is in commonplaces!  That idea of mine needs some thought.”  So, instead of going to bed he sat down on one of the chimney benches.

A sleepy potboy went to and fro among the tables, clearing up empty tankards and breakage.  Maitre le Borgne sat in his corner, reckoning up the day’s accounts.

Suddenly Victor slapped his thigh and rose.  “Body of Bacchus and horns of Panurge!  I will do it.  Mazarin will never look for me there.  It is simple.”  And a smile, genuine and pleasant, lit up his face.  “I will forswear Calliope and nail my flag to Clio; I will no longer write poetry, I will write history and make it.”

He climbed to his room, cast off his hostler’s livery and slid into bed, to dream of tumbling seas, of vast forests, of mighty rivers . . . and of grey masks.

Promptly at seven he rejoined the Chevalier.  Breton was packing a large portmanteau.  He had gathered together those things which he knew his master loved.

“Monsieur,” said the lackey, holding up a book, “this will not go in.”

“What is it?” indifferently.

“Rabelais, Monsieur.”

“Keep it, lad; I make you a present of it.  You have been writing, Victor?”

Victor was carelessly balancing a letter in his hand.  “Yes.  A thousand crowns,—­which I shall own some day,—­that you can not guess its contents,” gaily.