It was hung with pictures of departed Condillacs--some of them rudely wrought enough--with trophies of ancient armour, and with implements of the chase.

In the centre stood an oblong table of black oak, very richly carved about its massive legs, and in a china bowl, on this, an armful of late roses filled the room with their sweet fragrance.
Then Garnache espied a page on the window-seat, industriously burnishing a cuirass.

He pursued his task, indifferent to the newcomer's advent, until the knave who had conducted thither the Parisian called the boy and bade him go tell the Marquise that a Monsieur de Garnache, with a message from the Queen-Regent, begged an audience.
The boy rose, and simultaneously, out of a great chair by the hearth, whose tall back had hitherto concealed him, there rose another figure.
This was a stripling of some twenty summers--twenty-one, in fact--of a pale, beautifully featured face, black hair and fine black eyes, and very sumptuously clad in a suit of shimmering silk whose colour shifted from green to purple as he moved.
Monsieur de Garnache assumed that he was in the presence of Marius de Condillac.

He bowed a trifle stiffly, and was surprised to have his bow returned with a graciousness that amounted almost to cordiality.
"You are from Paris, monsieur ?" said the young man, in a gentle, pleasant voice.

"I fear you have had indifferent weather for your journey." Garnache thought of other things besides the weather that he had found indifferent, and he felt warmed almost to the point of anger at the very recollection.