iolets which the poet had
joined to music:

"_When Ma'm'selle drinks from her satin shoe,
I drink the wine from her radiant eyes;
And we sit in a casement made for two
When Ma'm'selle drinks from her satin shoe
With a Bacchante's love for a Bacchic brew!
Then kiss the grape, for the midnight flies
When Ma'm'selle drinks from her satin shoe,
And I the wine from her radiant eyes!_"

"Madame, he sings well," said the marquis, whimsically. "What was it the
Jesuits said? . . . corrupt and degenerate? Yes, those were the words.
'Tis true; and this disease of idleness is as infectious as the plague.
And this son of mine, he is following the game path through which I
passed . . . to this, palsy and senility! Oh, the subtile poisons, the
intoxicating Hippocrenes I taught him how to drink! And now he turns and
casts the dregs into my face. But as I said, I make no plaint; I do not
lack courage. A pleasant pastime it was, this worldly lessoning; but I
forgot that he was partly a reproduction of his Catholic mother; that
where I stood rugged he would fall; that he did not possess ardor that is
without fire, love that is without sentiment. . . ."

A maudlin voice took up the Chevalier's song . . .

"_When Ma'm'selle drinks from her satin shoe
With a Bacchante's love for a Bacchic brew!_"

"Reparation, Madame?" went on the marquis. "Such things are beyond
reparation. And yet it is possible to save him. But how? Behold! you
inspire me. I will save him. I will pardon his insolence, his contempt,
his indifference, which, having my bone, was bred in him. Still, the
question rises: for what shall I save him? Shall he love a good woman
some day? Mayhap. So I will save him, not for the Church, but for the
possible but unknown quantity."

There was a chorus, noisy and out of all harmony. At the end there came
a crash, followed by laughter. Some convivial spirit had lost his
balance and had fallen to the floor, dragging with him several bottles.

Without heeding these sounds, the marquis continued his monologue. "Yes,
I will save him. But not with kindly words, with promises, with appeals;
he would laugh at me. No, Madame; human nature such as his does not stir
to these when they come from the lips of one he does not hold in respect.
The shock must be rude, penetrating. I must break his pride. And on
what is pride based if not upon the pomp of riches? I will take away his
purse. Wha