abitual plethora of colour. He sought to temporize.

"Does it not occur to you, monsieur, that perhaps too much importance
may have been attached to the word of this child--this Mademoiselle de
La Vauvraye?"

"Does it occur to you that such has been the case, that she has
overstated it?" counter-questioned Monsieur de Garnache.

"No, no. I do not say that. But--but--would it not be
better--more--ah--satisfactory to all concerned, if you yourself were
to go to Condillac, and deliver your message in person, demanding
mademoiselle?"

The man from Paris looked at him a moment, then stood up suddenly, and
shifted the carriages of his sword back to their normal position. His
brows came together in a frown, from which the Seneschal argued that his
suggestion was not well received.

"Monsieur," said the Parisian very coldly, like a man who contains a
rising anger, "let me tell you that this is the first time in my life
that I have been concerned in anything that had to do with women and I
am close upon forty years of age. The task, I can assure you, was little
to my taste. I embarked upon it because, being a soldier and having
received my orders, I was in the unfortunate position of being unable to
help myself. But I intend, monsieur, to adhere rigidly to the letter of
these commands. Already I have endured more than enough in the interests
of this damsel. I have ridden from Paris, and that means close upon a
week in the saddle--no little thing to a man who has acquired certain
habits of life and developed a taste for certain minor comforts which he
is very reluctant to forgo. I have fed and slept at inns, living on the
worst of fares and sleeping on the hardest, and hardly the cleanest, of
beds. Ventregris! Figure to yourself that last night we lay at Luzan,
in the only inn the place contained--a hovel, Monsieur le Seneschal, a
hovel in which I would not kennel a dog I loved."

His face flushed, and his voice rose as he dwelt upon the things he had
undergone.

"My servant and I slept in a dormitory'--a thousand devils! monsieur, in
a dormitory! Do you realize it? We had for company a drunken vintner,
a pedlar, a pilgrim on his way to Rome, and two peasant women; and
they sent us to bed without candles, for modesty's sake. I ask you to
conceive my feelings in such a case as that. I could tell you more; but
that as a sample of what I have undergone could scarcely be surpassed."

"Truly-truly outrageous," sympathized the