"Friends?" The marquis shrugged. "Is that what he calls them? When do
these grasping Jesuits visit me?"

"At eight, Monsieur. They are due this moment, unless they have failed
to make the harbor."

"And they bring the savage? Good. He will interest me, and I am dying
of weariness. I shall see a man again. Arrange some chairs next to
me, bring a bottle of claret, and a thousand livres from the steward's
chest. And listen, Jehan, let Monsieur le Comte's servant give orders
to the butler for his master. I forbid you to do it."

"Yes, Monsieur," and Jehan proceeded to light the chandelier, the
illumination of which brought out distinctly the tarnished splendor of
the salon. Jehan retired.

The marquis, to steady his teetering head, rested his chin on his
hands, which were clasped over the top of his walking-stick.
Occasionally his eyes roved to the portrait of his wife, and a
melancholy, unreadable smile broke the severe line of his lips.

"A beautiful woman," he mused aloud, "though she did not inspire me
with love. Beauty: that is the true religion, that is the shrine of
worship, as the Greeks understood it; beauty of woman. Woman was born
to express beauty, man to express strength. We detest weakness in a
man, and a homely woman is a crime. And so De Brissac passed
violently? And his oaths of vengeance were breaths on a mirror. Ah
well, I had ceased to hate him these twenty years. Did he love yonder
woman, or was his fancy like mine, ephemeral? And he married
Mademoiselle de Montbazon? That is droll, a kind of tentative
vengeance."

His eyes closed and he fell into a dreaming state. Like all men who
have known eventful but useless lives, the marquis lived in the past.
The future held for him nothing cut pain and death, and his thought
seldom went forth to meet it. Day after day he sat alone with his
souvenirs, unmindful of the progress about him, indifferent.

When the valet returned with the wine and the livres, he placed three
chairs within easy distance of the marquis, and waited to learn what
further orders his master had in mind.

The marquis opened his eyes. "When Messieurs the Jesuits come, show
them in at once. The hypocrites come on a begging errand. After I
have humiliated them, I shall give them money, and they will say,
'_Absolvo te_.' It is simple. And they will promise to pray for the
repose of my soul when I am dead. My faith, how easy it is to gain
Heaven! A thousand