ut the risk of being
laughed at."--"I know it."

"Then you refuse to fight?"

"With you."

"After having provoked me?"

"I confess it."

"But if my patience fail, and I attack you?"

"I will throw my sword away; but I shall then have reason to hate you,
and the first time I find you in the wrong, I will kill you."

Ernanton sheathed his sword. "You are a strange man," said he, "and I
pity you."

"You pity me!"

"Yes, for you must suffer."

"Horribly."

"Do you never love?"

"Never."

"Have you no passions?"

"One alone, jealousy; but that includes all others to a frightful
degree. I adore a woman, as soon as she loves another; I love gold, when
another possesses it;--yes, you are right, I am unhappy."

"Have you never tried to become good?"

"Yes, and failed. What does the venomous plant? What do the bear and
bird of prey? They destroy, but certain people use them for the chase.
So shall I be in the hands of MM. d'Epernon and Loignac, till the day
when they shall say, 'This plant is hurtful, let us tear it up; this
beast is furious, let us kill him.'"

Ernanton was calmed; St. Maline was no longer an object of anger but of
pity.

"Good fortune should cure you," said he; "when you succeed, you should
hate less."

"However high I should rise, others would be higher."

They rode on silently for some time. At last Ernanton held out his hand
to St. Maline, and said, "Shall I try to cure you?"

"No, do not try that; you would fail. Hate me, on the contrary, and I
shall admire you."

An hour after they entered the Louvre; the king had gone out, and would
not return until evening.

CHAPTER XXX.

DE LOIGNAC'S INTERVIEW WITH THE FORTY-FIVE.

Each of the young men placed himself at a window to watch for the return
of the king. Ernanton, however, soon forgot his present situation, and
became abstracted in thinking who the woman could be who had entered
Paris as his page, and whom he had since seen in such a splendid litter;
and with a heart more disposed to love adventure than to make ambitious
calculations, he forgot why he was sitting there, till, suddenly raising
his head, he saw that St. Maline was no longer there. He understood at
once that he had seen the king arrive, and had gone to him. He rose
quickly, traversed the gallery, and arrived at the king's room just as
St. Maline was coming out.

"Look!" cried he joyfully, "what the king has given me," and he showed a
gold chain.