ightful it was to me to be received as an equal and honoured guest by
a man, even then famous, and now so grown in reputation as to overshadow
all Frenchmen save his master; how pleasant to enjoy the comforts and
amiabilities of home, from which I had been long estranged; to pour my
mother's story into Madame's ears and find comfort in her sympathy; to
feel myself, in fine, once more a gentleman with an acknowledged place
in the world. Our days we spent in hunting, or excursions of some
kind, our evenings in long conversations, which impressed me with an
ever-growing respect for my lord's powers.

For there seemed to be no end either to his knowledge of France, or to
the plans for its development, which even then filled his brain, and
have since turned wildernesses into fruitful lands, and squalid towns
into great cities. Grave and formal, he could yet unbend; the most
sagacious of counsellors, he was a soldier also, and loved the seclusion
in which we lived the more that it was not devoid of danger; the
neighbouring towns being devoted to the League, and the general disorder
alone making it possible for him to lie unsuspected in his own house.

One thing only rendered my ease and comfort imperfect, and that was
the attitude which Mademoiselle de la Vire assumed towards me. Of her
gratitude in the first blush of the thing I felt no doubt, for not only
had she thanked me very prettily, though with reserve, on the evening of
my arrival, but the warmth of M. de Rosny's kindness left me no choice,
save to believe that she had given him an exaggerated idea of my merits
and services. I asked no more than this. Such good offices left me
nothing to expect or desire; my age and ill-fortune placing me at so
great a disadvantage that, far from dreaming of friendship or intimacy
with her, I did not even assume the equality in our daily intercourse to
which my birth, taken by itself, entitled me. Knowing that I must appear
in her eyes old, poor, and ill-dressed, and satisfied, with having
asserted my conduct and honour, I was careful not to trespass on her
gratitude; and while forward in such courtesies as could not weary
her, I avoided with equal care every appearance of pursuing her, or
inflicting my company upon her. I addressed her formally and upon formal
topics only, such, I mean, as we shared with the rest of our company;
and I reminded myself often that though we now met in the same house
and at the same table, she was still