st to hear the trifle of news
which I brought from Fontainebleau?"

"What, have you dared conceal a scandal so long, Abbe? Let us have it
instantly," cried the Canoness.

"He is certainly an offender," echoed Mademoiselle de Richeval.

"Ladies, listen to the Abbe," said the Princess languidly.

The pseudo-Abbe scanned the faces about him with a cunning look,
especially that of Germain, as one he would read through and through
were it possible.

"In the name of mercy, Abbe, proceed," the Canoness cried.

"It is a trifle, a piece of mere common talk," he said demurely.

"Speak, Abbe," commanded the Princess de Poix.

"Mademoiselle de Merecour----" he began deliberately.

"Helene?" all exclaimed in astonishment. "Proceed--tell us."

"She is my best friend," the Baroness murmured.

"Mademoiselle de Merecour," he repeated, still delaying. "Have you heard
why she looked so disdainful at the Queen's Game last evening?"

"We never guess your enigmas. Go on."

"She has need to look brave."

"She is about to marry Monsieur de Sillon," said Cyrene. "Perhaps that
explains any unusual expression."

"Ah, Monsieur de Sillon--yes, Mademoiselle, Monsieur de Sillon--but,
ladies, do you know there is no Monsieur de Sillon?"

"No Monsieur de Sillon?"

"Is Monsieur dead?" gasped Cyrene, her hand darting to her breast.

"Monsieur de Sillon will never die, Mademoiselle. It is a maxim of the
philosophy of Aquinas that what never existed never ceases to exist.
What a grand lord was this Monsieur de Sillon! How he bought himself
into that colonelship of Dragoons, invented that band uniform, scattered
those broad pieces at play, kept that stable of English hunters, and
boasted of those interminable ancestries in Burgundy! Well, this
Monsieur de Sillon, who rode in the carriages of the King by right of
his four centuries of _noblesse_, whose coat bore no less than eighteen
fine quarterings, whose crest was an eagle and his betrothed a Merecour,
is the son of a tanner of Tours."

"Incredible!"

"Impossible!"

"You fable exquisitely!"

"The contract of marriage, they said, had actually been signed by the
King----"

"Go on, you are a snail!" snapped the Canoness.

"Only then was it discovered that his father had amassed a fortune in
ox-skins, that the son had picked up some manners, riding, fencing, and
blazonry; none knows how; and that his first introductions were bought
and paid for. He is now, some say, in the Basti