th a penetrating quizzical look, "--my name is
Philip d'Avranche."

The young man's quick, watchful eyes fixed themselves like needles on
the Duke's face. Through his brain there ran a succession of queries and
speculations, and dominating them all one clear question-was he to gain
anything by this strange conversation? Who was this great man with a
name the same as his own, this crabbed nobleman with skin as yellow as
an orange, and body like an orange squeezed dry? He surely meant him no
harm, however, for flashes of kindliness had lighted the shrivelled face
as he talked. His look was bent in piercing comment upon Philip, who,
trying hard to solve the mystery, now made a tentative rejoinder to
his strange statement. Rising from his chair and bowing, he said, with
shrewd foreknowledge of the effect of his words:

"I had not before thought my own name of such consequence."

The old man grunted amiably. "My faith, the very name begets a towering
conceit wherever it goes," he answered, and he brought his stick down on
the floor with such vehemence that the emerald and ruby rings rattled on
his shrunken fingers.

"Be seated--cousin," he said with dry compliment, for Philip had
remained standing, as if with the unfeigned respect of a cadet in the
august presence of the head of his house. It was a sudden and bold
suggestion, and it was not lost on the Duke. The aged nobleman was too
keen an observer not to see the designed flattery, but he was in a mood
when flattery was palatable, seeing that many of his own class were
arrayed against him for not having joined the army of the Vendee; and
that the Revolutionists, with whom he had compromised, for the safety
of his lands of d'Avranche and his duchy of Bercy, regarded him with
suspicion. Between the two, the old man--at heart most profoundly a
Royalist--bided his time, in some peril but with no fear. The spirit of
this young Englishman of his own name pleased him; the flattery, patent
as it was, gratified him, for in revolutionary France few treated him
with deference now. Even the Minister of Marine, with whom he was on
good terms, called him "citizen" at times.

All at once it flashed on the younger man that this must be the Prince
d'Avranche, Duc de Bercy, of that family of d'Avranche from which his
own came in long descent--even from the days of Rollo, Duke of Normandy.
He recalled on the instant the token of fealty of the ancient House of
d'Avranche--the offering of