d
beneath the board.

There advanced into the room, with slouchy, ill-bred carriage, a young
man whose sole reputation was that of being the greatest rake in Paris,
the Duc de Richelieu, half-gamin, half-nobleman, who counted more
victims among titled ladies than he had fingers on his hands, whose sole
concern of living was to plan some new impassioned avowal, some new and
pitiless abandonment. This creature, meeting the salute of the regent,
and catching at the same moment a view of the regent's guest, found eyes
for nothing else, and stood boldly gazing at the face of her whom Paris
knew for the first time and under no more definite title than that of
"_Belle Sauvage_."

"Pray you, be seated, Monsieur le Duc," said the regent, calmly, and the
latter was wise enough to comply.

"Your Grace," said Madame de Sabran, "was it not understood that we were
to meet to-night none less than the wizard, Monsieur L'as?"

"Monsieur L'as will be with us, and his brother," replied Philippe.
"But now I ask you to bear witness to the shrewdness of your friend
Philippe in entertainment. I bethought me that, as we were to have with
us the master of the Messasebe, it were well to have with us also the
typified genius of that same Messasebe. 'Twas but a little conceit of my
own. And why--_mon enfant_, what is it to you? What do you know of our
controller of finance?"

The face of the woman at his right had suddenly gone white with a pallor
visible even beneath its rouge and patches. She half turned, as though
to push back her chair from the board, would have arisen, would have
spoken perhaps; yet act and gesture were at the time unnoticed.

"His Excellency, Monsieur Jean L'as, _le controleur-general_," came the
soft tones of the attendant near the door. "Monsieur Guillaume L'as,
brother of the _controleur-general_."

The eyes of all were turned toward the door.. Every petted bolle of
Paris there assembled shifted bodily in her seat, turning her gaze upon
that man whose reputation was the talk of all the realm of France.

There appeared now the tall, erect and vigorous form of a man owning a
superb physical beauty. Powerful, yet not too heavy for ease, his figure
retained that elasticity and grace which had won him favor in more than
one court of Europe. He himself might have been king as he advanced
steadily up the brilliantly-illuminated room. His costume, simply made,
yet of the richest materials of the time; his wig, highly pow