Monsieur le Marquis's son entertained his noble friends and the officers from Fort Louis.

There was wine in plenty and play ran high.

The marquis, however, while he permitted these saturnalia, invariably held aloof.
It was servants' hall gossip that the relations existing between father and son were based upon the coldest formalities.

Conversation never went farther than "Good morning, Monsieur le Marquis" and "Good morning, Monsieur le Comte." The marquis pretended not to understand when any referred to his son as the "Chevalier du Cevennes." It was also gossiped that this noble house was drawing to its close; for the Chevalier had declined to marry, and was drinking and gaming heavily; and to add to the marquis's chagrin, the Chevalier had been dismissed from court, in disgrace,--a calamity which till now had never fallen upon the House of Perigny.
The marquis was growing old.

As he sat before the fire in the grand salon, the flickering yellow light playing over his features, which had a background of moving, deep velvet-brown shadows, he might have been the theme of some melancholy whim by Rubens, a stanza by Dante.