ile she waited for my answer, first at the two silent figures
by the fire, then at the poverty-stricken room; as if the sight of its
bareness heightened for her the joy of my prosperity.

She had no suspicion of my trouble, my misery, or that the last question
almost filled the cup too full. Hitherto all had been easy, but this
seemed to choke me. I stammered and lost my voice. Mademoiselle, her
head bowed, was gazing into the fire. Fanchette was staring at me, her
black eyes round as saucers, her mouth half-open. 'Well, madame,'
I muttered at length, 'to tell you the truth, at present, you must
understand, I have been forced to--'

'What, Gaston?' Madame de Bonne half rose in bed. Her voice was sharp
with disappointment and apprehension; the grasp of her fingers on my
hand grew closer.

I could not resist that appeal. I flung away the last rag of shame.
'To reduce my establishment somewhat,' I answered, looking a miserable
defiance at mademoiselle's averted figure. She had called me a liar and
a cheat--here in the room! I must stand before her a liar and a cheat
confessed. 'I keep but three lackeys now, madame.'

Still it is creditable,' my mother muttered thoughtfully, her eyes
shining. 'Your dress, however, Gaston--only my eyes are weak--seems to
me--'

'Tut, tut! It is but a disguise,' I answered quickly.

'I might have known that,' she rejoined, sinking back with a smile and
a sigh of content. 'But when I first saw you I was almost afraid that
something had happened to you. And I have been uneasy lately,' she
went on, releasing my hand, and beginning to play with the coverlet,
as though the remembrance troubled her. 'There was a man here a while
ago--a friend of Simon Fleix there--who had been south to Pau and Nerac,
and he said there was no M. de Marsac about the Court.'

'He probably knew less of the Court than the wine-tavern,' I answered
with a ghastly smile.

'That was just what I told him,' my mother responded quickly and
eagerly. 'I warrant you I sent him away ill-satisfied.'

'Of course,' I said; 'there will always be people of that kind. But
now, if you will permit me, madame, I will make such arrangements for
mademoiselle as are necessary.'

Begging her accordingly to lie down and compose herself--for even so
short a conversation, following on the excitement of our arrival,
had exhausted her to a painful degree--I took the youth, who had just
returned from stabling our horses, a little aside,