test mode.

Thus arrayed, his wig well curled and a clump of it caught in ribbon of
flame-coloured silk on the left side, his sword hanging from belt and
carriages richly wrought with gold, and the general courtier-like effect
rather marred by the heavy riding-boots which he would have liked to
leave behind yet was constrained to wear, he presented himself before
the Dowager, hiding his anxiety in a melting smile, and the latter in
the profoundest of bows.

The graciousness of his reception overwhelmed him almost, for in his
supreme vanity he lacked the wit to see that this cordiality might be
dictated by no more than the need they had of him at Condillac. A lackey
placed a great chair for him by the fire that he might warm himself
after his evening ride, and the Dowager, having ordered lights, sat
herself opposite him with the hearth between them.

He simpered awhile and toyed with trivialities of speech before he gave
utterance to the matter that absorbed him. Then, at last, when they were
alone, he loosed the question that was bubbling on his lips.

"I hear a courier came to Condillac to-day."

For answer she told him what he sought to learn, whence came that
courier, and what the message that he brought.

"And so, Monsieur de Tressan," she ended, "my days at Condillac are
numbered."

"Why so?" he asked, "since you say that Florimond has adopted towards
you a friendly tone. Surely he would not drive his father's widow
hence?"

She smiled at the fire in a dreamy, pensive manner.

"No," said she, "he would not drive me hence. He has offered me the
shelter of Condillac for as long as it may pleasure me to make it my
home."

"Excellent!" he exclaimed, rubbing his little fat hands and screwing the
little features of his huge red face into the grotesque semblance of a
smile. "What need to talk of going, then?"

"What need?" she echoed, in a voice dull and concentrated. "Do you ask
that, Tressan? Do you think I should elect to live upon the charity of
this man?"

For all that the Lord Seneschal may have been dull-witted, yet he had
wit enough to penetrate to the very marrow of her meaning.

"You must hate Florimond very bitterly," said he. She shrugged her
shoulders.

"I possess, I think, the faculty of feeling strongly. I can love well,
monsieur, and I can hate well. It is one or the other with me. And as
cordially as I love my own son Marius, as cordially do I detest this
coxcomb Florimond."

She expr