It required but a glance to note the subtile change the afternoon had wrought in his personal appearance, yet at the time I did not greatly marvel at it.  The stains of battle and exposure, that had so decidedly disfigured him, had disappeared before the magic of new raiment, which had about it the color and cut of French fashion; so it was now a fair and prosperous gallant of the court, powdered of hair, waxen of moustache, who came jauntily forward with his greetings.

“What said I, Master Benteen?” he questioned cheerily to my stare of surprise.  “Did I not boldly contend that this would yet prove a pleasant resting-place to relieve the tedium of a journey?  Can you gaze upon this gay attire, longer doubting the verity of my dreams?  But no happiness finds reflection in your face; ’tis gloomy as a day of rain.  Prithie, the afternoon must have been passed by you far less pleasantly than its hours sped with me.”

“I have been conversing with good Master Cairnes,” I responded gravely.  “I found him in no state of mind or body to bring me pleasant thought.”

“Parbleu!  I warrant not from all I hear of that worthy servant,” the Chevalier laughed gayly. “’T is told me the grim-faced old hypocrite sits in worshipful state, a veritable god, trussed like a bronze idol or some mummy of the Egyptians.  By my faith, I should enjoy gazing on his solemn face, and listening to his words withal.”

“’T is an unhappy experience for a Christian.”

“Ay! a pity; yet it should do the canting preacher good to play heathen god a while.  She pictured to me most vividly his struggles to escape a fit draping with which to match his hair. Sacre!  I have not laughed so heartily since leaving New Orleans.”

“She?” I exclaimed in new interest.  “Have you been with your wife?”

He stroked his moustache, gazing at me in apparent surprise.

“Nay, friend Benteen; you must be the very soul of innocence to make such hasty guess.  I rested beneath the same roof with her, so I was informed, yet she who spake thus regarding the plight of the Puritan chanced to be the fair Queen, Naladi.”

“Naladi?  But you speak no Spanish,—­how could you hold converse with her?”

“There are always ways, if the lady be fair.  The hands, eyes, lips can all be made into messengers of speech.  But in this case she brought forth a black boy—­a most mischievous imp—­who managed to convey her words in my own tongue.  Still it was difficult to do justice in such a way to so charming a woman; much came to my lips which I hesitated to utter through the medium of that interpreter.”

I looked at him in speechless amazement at this revelation of his supreme conceit, his reckless vanity.  Anxiety alone prompted me to smother my resentment, hoping thus to obtain information.

“But your wife, Madame de Noyan?  You say she was beneath the same roof, and yet you saw her not?  Do you mean you made no effort to obtain speech with her?”