ttled their losses and winnings. The master of the house was pacing
up and down the room, while Mlle. Armande was putting out the candles
on the card-tables. He was not taking exercise alone, the Chevalier was
with him, and the two wrecks of the eighteenth century were talking of
Victurnien. The Chevalier had undertaken to broach the subject with the
Marquis.

"Yes, Marquis," he was saying, "your son is wasting his time and his
youth; you ought to send him to court."

"I have always thought," said the Marquis, "that if my great age
prevents me from going to court--where, between ourselves, I do not know
what I should do among all these new people whom his Majesty receives,
and all that is going on there--that if I could not go myself, I could
at least send my son to present our homage to His Majesty. The King
surely would do something for the Count--give him a company, for
instance, or a place in the Household, a chance, in short, for the boy
to win his spurs. My uncle the Archbishop suffered a cruel martyrdom;
I have fought for the cause without deserting the camp with those who
thought it their duty to follow the Princes. I held that while the King
was in France, his nobles should rally round him.--Ah! well, no one
gives us a thought; a Henry IV. would have written before now to the
d'Esgrignons, 'Come to me, my friends; we have won the day!'--After
all, we are something better than the Troisvilles, yet here are two
Troisvilles made peers of France; and another, I hear, represents
the nobles in the Chamber." (He took the upper electoral colleges for
assemblies of his own order.) "Really, they think no more of us than if
we did not exist. I was waiting for the Princes to make their journey
through this part of the world; but as the Princes do not come to us, we
must go to the Princes."

"I am enchanted to learn that you think of introducing our dear
Victurnien into society," the Chevalier put in adroitly. "He ought not
to bury his talents in a hole like this town. The best fortune that he
can look for here is to come across some Norman girl" (mimicking
the accent), "country-bred, stupid, and rich. What could he make of
her?--his wife? Oh! good Lord!"

"I sincerely hope that he will defer his marriage until he has obtained
some great office or appointment under the Crown," returned the
gray-haired Marquis. "Still, there are serious difficulties in the way."

And these were the only difficulties which the Marquis sa