"A fit servant for such a master as Louis the Just!" "Monsieur le Vicomte," said I, warming in my own defence, "I swear you do him injustice.

He is extravagant, but then he is rich; he is a libertine, but then he is young, and he has been reared among libertines; he is a gamester, but punctiliously honourable at play.
Believe me, monsieur, I have some acquaintance with Marcel de Bardelys, and his vices are hardly so black as is generally believed; whilst in his favour I think the same may be said that you have just said of his father--he is an honest, upright gentleman." "And that disgraceful affair with the Duchesse de Bourgogne ?" inquired Lavedan, with the air of a man setting an unanswerable question.
"Mon Dieu!" I cried, "will the world never forget that indiscretion?
An indiscretion of youth, no doubt much exaggerated outside Court circles." The Vicomte eyed me in some astonishment for a moment.
"Monsieur de Lesperon," he said at length, "you appear to hold this Bardelys in high esteem.

He has a staunch supporter in you and a stout advocate.

Yet me you cannot convince." And he shook his head solemnly.
"Even if I did not hold him to be such a man as I have pronounced him, but were to account him a paragon of all the virtues, his coming hither remains an act that I must resent." "But why, Monsieur le Vicomte ?" "Because I know the errand that brings him to Lavedan.

He comes to woo my daughter." Had he flung a bomb into my bed he could not more effectively have startled me.
"It astonishes you, eh ?" he laughed bitterly.