The marquis thought that he had caused this unusual fit of abstraction.

“It is the result of my adroit manoeuvre,” he said to himself, not without secret satisfaction.  “Until the restitution of Sairmeuse is legalized, I can make my father do anything I wish; yes, anything.  And if it is necessary, he will even invite Lacheneur and Marie-Anne to his table.”

He was mistaken.  The duke had already forgotten the affair; his most vivid impressions lasted no longer than an indentation in the sand.

He lowered the glass in front of the carriage, and, after ordering the coachman to drive more slowly: 

“Now,” said he to his son, “let us talk a little.  Are you really in love with that little Lacheneur?”

Martial could not repress a start.  “Oh! in love,” said he, lightly, “that would perhaps be saying too much.  Let me say that she has taken my fancy; that will be sufficient.”

The duke regarded his son with a bantering air.

“Really, you delight me!” he exclaimed.  “I feared that this love-affair might derange, at least for the moment, certain plans that I have formed—­for I have formed certain plans for you.”

“The devil!”

“Yes, I have my plans, and I will communicate them to you later in detail.  I will content myself today by recommending you to examine Mademoiselle Blanche de Courtornieu.”

Martial made no reply.  This recommendation was entirely unnecessary.  If Mlle. Lacheneur had made him forget Mlle. de Courtornieu that morning for some moments, the remembrance of Marie-Anne was now effaced by the radiant image of Blanche.

“Before discussing the daughter,” resumed the duke, “let us speak of the father.  He is one of my strongest friends; and I know him thoroughly.  You have heard men reproach me for what they style my prejudices, have you not?  Well, in comparison with the Marquis de Courtornieu, I am only a Jacobin.”

“Oh! my father!”

“Really, nothing could be more true.  If I am behind the age in which I live, he belongs to the reign of Louis XIV.  Only—­for there is an only—­the principles which I openly avow, he keeps locked up in his snuff-box—­and trust him for not forgetting to open it at the opportune moment.  He has suffered cruelly for his opinions, in the sense of having so often been obliged to conceal them.  He concealed them, first, under the consulate, when he returned from exile.  He dissimulated them even more courageously under the Empire—­for he played the part of a kind of chamberlain to Bonaparte, this dear marquis.  But, chut! do not remind him of that proof of heroism; he has deplored it bitterly since the battle of Lutzen.”

This was the tone in which M. de Sairmeuse was accustomed to speak of his best friends.