I," I answered cautiously. "Why
question me upon his character?"

"I was hardly questioning; I was commenting. He spent a fortnight in
Paris once, and he accounts himself, or would have us account him,
intimate with every courtier at the Luxembourg. Oh, he is very amusing,
this good cousin, but tiresome too." She laughed, and there was the
faintest note of scorn in her amusement. "Now, touching this Marquis de
Bardelys, it is very plain that the Chevalier boasted when he said that
they were as brothers--he and the Marquis--is it not? He grew ill at
ease when you reminded him of the possibility of the Marquis's visit to
Lavedan." And she laughed quaintly to herself. "Do you think that he so
much as knows Bardelys?" she asked me suddenly.

"Not so much as by sight," I answered. "He is full of information
concerning that unworthy gentleman, but it is only information that the
meanest scullion in Paris might afford you, and just as inaccurate."

"Why do you speak of him as unworthy? Are you of the same opinion as my
father?"

"Aye, and with better cause."

"You know him well?"

"Know him? Pardieu, he is my worst enemy. A worn-out libertine; a
sneering, cynical misogynist; a nauseated reveller; a hateful egotist.
There is no more unworthy person, I'll swear, in all France. Peste! The
very memory of the fellow makes me sick. Let us talk of other things."

But although I urged it with the best will and the best intentions in
the world, I was not to have my way. The air became suddenly heavy with
the scent of musk, and the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache stood before us,
and forced the conversation once more upon the odious topic of Monsieur
de Bardelys.

The poor fool came with a plan of campaign carefully considered, bent
now upon overthrowing me with the knowledge he would exhibit, and
whereby he looked to encompass my humiliation before his cousin.

"Speaking of Bardelys, Monsieur de Lesperon--"

"My dear Chevalier, we were no longer speaking of him."

He smiled darkly. "Let us speak of him, then."

"But are there not a thousand more interesting things that we might
speak of?"

This he took for a fresh sign of fear, and so he pressed what he
accounted his advantage.

"Yet have patience; there is a point on which perhaps you can give me
some information."

"Impossible," said I.

"Are you acquainted with the Duchesse de Bourgogne?"

"I was," I answered casually, and as casually I added, "Are you?"

"Excel