a chill and cloudy morning, and Brutus was standing
by my bed, holding a bowl of chocolate between a thumb and forefinger,
that made the piece of china look as delicately fragile as a flower.

"Eleven o'clock," he said. "You sleep late."

I looked at him blankly, still trying to shake off the drowsiness that
crowded upon me. It seemed only a few minutes back that he had lighted
me to that room. He must have detected a shade of suspicion in the look
I gave him.

"Too much wine," said Brutus quickly.

But when he spoke, I knew it was not wine that made me sleep the whole
night through. He thrust the bowl he was holding nearer to me.

"And now you poison me," I remarked, but he shook his head in
emphatic negation.

"Hah!" he grunted, and emitted a curious chuckle that caused me to give
him my full attention.

"You find the morning amusing, Brutus?" I asked.

He gulped and nodded in assent.

"Last night you kill me. Now I give you chocolate. He! He!"

I glanced at him over the edge of the chocolate bowl. It was the first
time I had heard anyone laugh at so truly a Christian doctrine.

"Monsieur sends compliments," he said.

"Brutus," came my father's voice across the hall, "tell him I will see
him as soon as he has finished dressing."

He was sitting before his fire, wrapped in a dressing gown of Chinese
silk, embroidered with flowers. By the tongs and shovel lay a pair of
riding boots, still so wet and mud-spattered that he must have pulled
them off within the hour. A decanter of rum was near him on a stand. On
his knee was a volume of Rabelais, which was affording him decorous
amusement.

Brutus was busy gathering up the gray satin small clothes of the previous
day, which had been tossed in a careless heap on the floor, and I
perceived that they also bore the marks of travel. Careful mentors, who
had taken a lively pleasure in their teaching, had been at pains to tell
me that he was a man of irregular habits. Yet with indulgent politeness
he remained blandly reticent. For him the day seemed to have started
afresh, independent and unrelated to other days. It had awakened in him a
genial spirit, far brighter than the morning. He greeted me with a gay
wave of the hand and a nod of invitation towards the rum. My refusal
served only to increase his courteous good nature.

"A very good morning to you, my son," he said. "So you have slept. Gad,
how I envy you! It is hard to be a man of affairs and still rest wi