our children.
Thus it was that the Seigneur de Gavrillac, glad to escape from a
province so peculiarly disturbed as that of Brittany--where the nobles
had shown themselves the most intransigent of all France--had come to
occupy in his brother's absence the courtier's handsome villa at Meudon.

That he was quite happy there is not to be supposed. A man of his almost
Spartan habits, accustomed to plain fare and self-help, was a little
uneasy in this sybaritic abode, with its soft carpets, profusion of
gilding, and battalion of sleek, silent-footed servants--for Kercadiou
the younger had left his entire household behind. Time, which at
Gavrillac he had kept so fully employed in agrarian concerns, here hung
heavily upon his hands. In self-defence he slept a great deal, and but
for Aline, who made no attempt to conceal her delight at this proximity
to Paris and the heart of things, it is possible that he would have beat
a retreat almost at once from surroundings that sorted so ill with his
habits. Later on, perhaps, he would accustom himself and grow resigned
to this luxurious inactivity. In the meantime the novelty of it fretted
him, and it was into the presence of a peevish and rather somnolent
M. de Kercadiou that Andre-Louis was ushered in the early hours of the
afternoon of that Sunday in June. He was unannounced, as had ever been
the custom at Gavrillac. This because Benoit, M. de Kercadiou's old
seneschal, had accompanied his seigneur upon this soft adventure, and
was installed--to the ceaseless and but half-concealed hilarity of the
impertinent valetaille that M. Etienne had left--as his maitre d'hotel
here at Meudon.

Benoit had welcomed M. Andre with incoherencies of delight; almost had
he gambolled about him like some faithful dog, whilst conducting him to
the salon and the presence of the Lord of Gavrillac, who would--in the
words of Benoit--be ravished to see M. Andre again.

"Monseigneur! Monseigneur!" he cried in a quavering voice, entering a
pace or two in advance of the visitor. "It is M. Andre... M. Andre, your
godson, who comes to kiss your hand. He is here... and so fine that you
would hardly know him. Here he is, monseigneur! Is he not beautiful?"

And the old servant rubbed his hands in conviction of the delight that
he believed he was conveying to his master.

Andre-Louis crossed the threshold of that great room, soft-carpeted to
the foot, dazzling to the eye. It was immensely lofty, and its festoo