"Instead, let me take you home." "If you please.

Carlat and the servants should be below." He took her left hand in his right after the wont of the day, and with his other hand touching his sword-hilt, he led her down the staircase, that by a single turn reached the courtyard of the palace.

Here a mob of armed servants, of lacqueys, and footboys, some bearing torches, and some carrying their masters' cloaks and _galoshes_, loitered to and fro.

Had M.de Tignonville been a little more observant, or a trifle less occupied with his own importance, he might have noted more than one face which looked darkly on him; he might have caught more than one overt sneer at his expense.

But in the business of summoning Carlat--Mademoiselle de Vrillac's steward and major-domo--he lost the contemptuous "Christaudins!" that hissed from a footboy's lips, and the "Southern dogs!" that died in the moustachios of a bully in the livery of the King's brother.