lthy Mademoiselle de Canaples; you, to watch over and protect
me--nay, you need not interrupt me. Michelot has told me what St. Auban
sought here, and the true motives of your journey to St. Sulpice. Never
shall I be able to sufficiently prove my gratitude to you, my poor
Gaston. But tell me, dear friend, you who from the outset saw how
matters stood, why did you not inform St. Auban that he had no cause to
hunt me down since I intended not to come between him and Yvonne?"

"Mon Dieu!" I exclaimed, "that little fair-haired coquette has--"

"Gaston," he interrupted, "you go too fast. I love Genevieve de
Canaples. I have loved her, I think, since the moment I beheld her in
the inn at Choisy, and, what is more, she loves me."

"So that--?" I asked with an ill-repressed sneer.

"We have plighted our troth, and with her father's sanction, or without
it, she will do me the honour to become my wife."

"Admirable!" I exclaimed. "And my Lord Cardinal?"

"May hang himself on his stole for aught I care."

"Ah! Truly a dutiful expression for a nephew who has thwarted his
uncle's plans!"

"My uncle's plans are like himself, cold and selfish in their ambition."

"Andrea, Andrea! Whatever your uncle may be, to those of your blood, at
least, he was never selfish."

"Not selfish!" he cried. "Think you that he is enriching and contracting
great alliances for us because he loves us? No, no. Our uncle seeks to
gain our support and with it the support of those noble houses to which
he is allying us. The nobility opposes him, therefore he seeks to find
relatives among noblemen, so that he may weather the storm of which his
far-seeing eyes have already detected the first dim clouds. What to him
are my feelings, my inclinations, my affections? Things of no moment, to
be sacrificed so that I may serve him in the manner that will bring him
the most profit. Yet you call him not selfish! Were he not selfish, I
should go to him and say: 'I love Genevieve de Canaples. Create me Duke
as you would do, did I wed her sister, and the Chevalier de Canaples
will not withstand our union.' What think you would be his answer?"

"I have a shrewd idea what his answer would be," I replied slowly. "Also
I have a shrewd idea of what he will say when he learns in what manner
you have defied his wishes."

"He can but order me away from Court, or, at most, banish me from
France."

"And then what will become of you--of you and your wife?"

"What is to