than a little the Duke was superstitious, and on the day when he
met Philip d'Avranche in the chamber of M. Dalbarade he had twice turned
back after starting to make the visit, so great was his dislike to
pay homage to the revolutionary Minister. He had nerved himself to the
distasteful duty, however, and had gone. When he saw the name of the
young English prisoner--his own name--staring him in the face, he had
had such a thrill as a miracle might have sent through the veins of a
doubting Christian.

Since that minute he, like Philip, had been in a kind of dream; on his
part, to find in the young man, if possible, an heir and successor; on
Philip's to make real exalted possibilities. There had slipped past
two months, wherein Philip had seen a new and brilliant avenue of life
opening out before him. Most like a dream indeed it seemed. He had been
shut out from the world, cut off from all connection with England and
his past, for M. Dalbarade made it a condition of release that he should
send no message or correspond with any one outside Castle Bercy. He
had not therefore written to Guida. She seemed an interminable distance
away. He was as completely in a new world as though he had been
transplanted; he was as wholly in the air of fresh ambitions as though
he were beginning the world again--ambitions as gorgeous as bewildering.

For, almost from the first, the old nobleman treated him like a son.
He spoke freely to him of the most private family matters, of the most
important State affairs. He consulted with him, he seemed to lean upon
him. He alluded often, in oblique phrase, to adoption and succession. In
the castle Philip was treated as though he were in truth a high kinsman
of the Duke. Royal ceremony and state were on every hand. He who had
never had a servant of his own, now had a score at his disposal. He had
spent his early days in a small Jersey manor-house; here he was walking
the halls of a palace with the step of assurance, the most honoured
figure in a principality next to the sovereign himself. "Adoption and
succession" were words that rang in his ears day and night. The wild
dream had laid feverish hands upon him. Jersey, England, the Navy,
seemed very far away.

Ambition was the deepest passion in him, even as defeating the hopes of
the Vaufontaines was more than a religion with the Duke. By no trickery,
but by a persistent good-nature, alertness of speech, avoidance of
dangerous topics, and aptness i