“You feel no ill effects from your moving, David?” he asked, with an anxious glance at me.

“None, sir,” I said.

“The country air will do you good,” he said kindly.

“And Madame la Vicomtesse will put him on a diet,” added Nick, rousing himself.

“Helene will take care of him,” answered Monsieur de St. Gre.

He fell to musing again.  “Madame la Vicomtesse has seen more in seven years than most of us see in a lifetime,” he said.  “She has beheld the glory of France, and the dishonor and pollution of her country.  Had the old order lasted her salon would have been famous, and she would have been a power in politics.”

“I have thought that the Vicomtesse must have had a queer marriage,” Nick remarked.

Monsieur de St. Gre smiled.

“Such marriages were the rule amongst our nobility,” he said.  “It was arranged while Helene was still in the convent, though it was not celebrated until three years after she had been in the world.  There was a romantic affair, I believe, with a young gentleman of the English embassy, though I do not know the details.  He is said to be the only man she ever cared for.  He was a younger son of an impoverished earl.”

I started, remembering what the Vicomtesse had said.  But Monsieur de St. Gre did not appear to see my perturbation.

“Be that as it may, if Helene suffered, she never gave a sign of it.  The marriage was celebrated with great pomp, and the world could only conjecture what she thought of the Vicomte.  It was deemed on both sides a brilliant match.  He had inherited vast estates, Ivry-le-Tour, Montmery, Les Saillantes, I know not what else.  She was heiress to the Chateau de St. Gre with its wide lands, to the chateau and lands of the Cote Rouge in Normandy, to the hotel St. Gre in Paris.  Monsieur le Vicomte was between forty and fifty at his marriage, and from what I have heard of him he had many of the virtues and many of the faults of his order.  He was a bachelor, which does not mean that he had lacked consolations.  He was reserved with his equals, and distant with others.  He had served in the Guards, and did not lack courage.  He dressed exquisitely, was inclined to the Polignac party, took his ease everywhere, had a knowledge of cards and courts, and little else.  He was cheated by his stewards, refused to believe that the Revolution was serious, and would undoubtedly have been guillotined had the Vicomtesse not contrived to get him out of France in spite of himself.  They went first to the Duke de Ligne, at Bel Oeil, and thence to Coblentz.  He accepted a commission in the Austrian service, which is much to his credit, and Helene went with some friends to England.  There my letter reached her, and rather than be beholden to strangers or accept my money there, she came to us.  That is her story in brief, Messieurs.  As for Monsieur le Vicomte, he admired his wife, as well he might, respected her for the way she served the gallants, but he made no pretence of loving her.  One affair—­a girl in the village of Montmery—­had lasted.  Helene was destined for higher things than may be found in Louisiana,” said Monsieur de St. Gre, turning to Nick, “but now that you are to carry away my treasure, Monsieur, I do not know what I should have done without her.”