The supposition would not have been unreasonable." "The lad is a wit!" cried the marquis, in mock admiration.
The Chevalier bowed.

"Monsieur, if my presence at your hotel is not agreeable to you, I will leave at once.

It is a small matter where I spend the night, as I return to court to-morrow." "Ah! And what brought about this good fortune which has returned you to her Majesty's graces ?" The marquis never mentioned Mazarin.
"The cause would scarcely interest you, Monsieur," coldly.

The roisterers were becoming hilarious once more, and the Chevalier grew restive.
"No, nothing interests me; but one grows weary of wine-bibbers and roisterers, of spendthrifts and sponges." "Monsieur is old and can not appreciate the natural exuberance of youth." The marquis fumbled at his lips.
"Surely, Monsieur," went on the Chevalier, the devil of banter in his tones, "surely you are not going to preach me a sermon after having taught me life from your own book ?" "Monsieur, attend to me.

You have disappointed me in a hundred ways." "What! have I not proved an apt scholar?
Have I not succeeded in being written in Rochelle as a drunkard and a gamester?
Perhaps I have not concerned myself sufficiently with women?
Ah well, Monsieur, I am young yet; there is still time to make me totally hateful, not only to others, but to myself." All these replies, which passed above and below the marquis's guard, pierced the quick; and the marquis, whose impulse had been good, but whose approach to the vital point of discussion was without tact, began to lose patience; and a cold anger awoke in his eyes.
"Monsieur le Comte," he said, rising, "I have summoned you here to discuss not the past, but the future." He was quite as tall as his son, but gaunt and with loosely hanging clothes.
"The future ?" said the Chevalier.