La Mole to himself as he
went away.

The duke heard the noise of his retreating steps; then opening the door
and drawing De Mouy after him:

"Watch him going away," said he, "and try to copy his inimitable walk."

"I will do my best," replied De Mouy. "Unfortunately I am not a lady's
man, but a soldier."

"At all events I shall expect you in this corridor before midnight. If
the chamber of my gentlemen is free, I will receive you there; if not,
we will find another."

"Yes, monseigneur."

"Until this evening then, before midnight."

"Until this evening, before midnight."

"Ah! by the way, De Mouy, swing your right arm a good deal as you walk.
This is a peculiar trick of Monsieur de la Mole's."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE RUE TIZON AND THE RUE CLOCHE PERCEE.

La Mole hurriedly left the Louvre, and set out to search Paris for poor
Coconnas.

His first move was to repair to the Rue de l'Arbre Sec and to enter
Maitre La Huriere's, for La Mole remembered that he had often repeated
to the Piedmontese a certain Latin motto which was meant to prove that
Love, Bacchus, and Ceres are gods absolutely necessary to us, and he
hoped that Coconnas, to follow up the Roman aphorism, had gone to the
_Belle Etoile_ after a night which must have been as full for his friend
as it had been for himself.

La Mole found nothing at La Huriere's except the reminder of the assumed
obligation. A breakfast which was offered with good grace was eagerly
accepted by our gentleman, in spite of his anxiety. His stomach calmed
in default of his mind, La Mole resumed his walk, ascending the bank of
the Seine like a husband searching for his drowned wife. On reaching the
quay of the Greve, he recognized the place where, as he had said to
Monsieur d'Alencon, he had been stopped during his nocturnal tramp three
or four hours before. This was no unusual thing in Paris, older by a
hundred years than that in which Boileau was awakened at the sound of a
ball piercing his window shutter. A bit of the plume from his hat
remained on the battle-field. The sentiment of possession is innate in
man. La Mole had ten plumes each more beautiful than the last, and yet
he stopped to pick up that one, or, rather, the sole fragment of what
remained of it, and was contemplating it with a pitiful air when he
heard the sound of heavy steps approaching, and rough voices ordering
him to stand aside. La Mole raised his head and perceived a litter
preceded by two pa