a part from _The Unconscious Philosopher_? Are
you ill?"

"I am leaving Versailles."

"Nonsense."

"And France."

"Never!"

"It is the case."

"But I have named you for the sub-lieutenancy."

Lecour looked up; but it was not enough to revive him from so deep a
slough.

"I must go, Baron."

"_Galimatias!_ You shall not throw away a commission in the Bodyguard of
the greatest Court in Europe. My brother-officers demand you, and you
must not desert me, your friend--your _friend_, Germain."

Germain went over to a window and looked out, to hide the tears with
which his eyes were filling. In the courtyard below a coach had stopped
at one of the doors. Cyrene was entering it. Why was she brought before
him just at that moment. This inopportune glimpse of her cancelled all
reasoning. With fevered sight he watched her till the coach disappeared,
and turning, said eagerly to de Grancey--

"Is not the Prince's consent required?"

"You agree!" Grancey cried, embracing him joyfully. "As to the Prince,
comrade," said he, "the sole difficulty is that he will grant anything
to anybody. We must get his signature--for which I admit it is delicate
to ask him--before any other applicant."

Lecour's pulses sprang back to life.

"Could the _Princess_ assist us?" he inquired.

"Perfect!" cried the Baron.

Germain returned to her apartment. The Abbe was handing her a paper and
saying--

"An entirely worthy gentleman, your Excellency, and wounded in several
of the King's victories, as well as of irreproachable descent."

Germain did not guess until it was too late that this was the petition
of the Chevalier de la Violette.

She was stretching out her hand to take the pen which Jude passed to
her.

"Madame," Lecour exclaimed breathlessly, "I have a prayer to make to you
immediately."

"Yes, Monsieur de Repentigny?"

"For a commission."

"Delightful."

"A vacant commission of sub-lieutenant in the company of the Prince."

She dropped the pen in wonder and looked at the Abbe Jude, whose face
turned sickly.

And so Germain obtained a great position.

"As a matter of form," said Major Collinot, the Adjutant of the
Bodyguard, at headquarters, "Monsieur de Repentigny of course proves the
necessary generations of _noblesse_?"

"Here is the herald's attestation, sir," replied Germain, producing that
which Grancey's intercession had obtained for him at Fontainebleau.

Doubly past the strictest tests of ancestry