al about the tone of it."

We others laughed.

"Oh, you did, did you? You think you are very clever, don't you? I'll
take and wring your neck for you one of these days, Noel Rainguesson."

The Sieur de Metz said:

"Paladin, your fears haven't reached the top notch. They are away
below the grand possibilities. Didn't it occur to you that in civil
and society functions they will take precedence of all the rest of the
personal staff--every one of us?"

"Oh, come!"

"You'll find it's so. Look at their escutcheon. Its chiefest feature is
the lilies of France. It's royal, man, royal--do you understand the size
of that? The lilies are there by authority of the King--do you understand
the size of that? Though not in detail and in entirety, they do
nevertheless substantially quarter the arms of France in their coat.
Imagine it! consider it! measure the magnitude of it! We walk in front
of those boys? Bless you, we've done that for the last time. In my
opinion there isn't a lay lord in this whole region that can walk in
front of them, except the Duke d'Alencon, prince of the blood."

You could have knocked the Paladin down with a feather. He seemed to
actually turn pale. He worked his lips a moment without getting anything
out; then it came:

"I didn't know that, nor the half of it; how could I? I've been an
idiot. I see it now--I've been an idiot. I met them this morning, and
sung out hello to them just as I would to anybody. I didn't mean to
be ill-mannered, but I didn't know the half of this that you've been
telling. I've been an ass. Yes, that is all there is to it--I've been an
ass."

Noel Rainguesson said, in a kind of weary way:

"Yes, that is likely enough; but I don't see why you should seem
surprised at it."

"You don't, don't you? Well, why don't you?"

"Because I don't see any novelty about it. With some people it is a
condition which is present all the time. Now you take a condition which
is present all the time, and the results of that condition will be
uniform; this uniformity of result will in time become monotonous;
monotonousness, by the law of its being, is fatiguing. If you had
manifested fatigue upon noticing that you had been an ass, that would
have been logical, that would have been rational; whereas it seems to me
that to manifest surprise was to be again an ass, because the condition
of intellect that can enable a person to be surprised and stirred by
inert monotonousness is a--"

"Now t