"Well?" exclaimed she.

"Well!" repeated Monsieur; "what is going on then?"

M. de Saint-Remy, who had just introduced his head through the doorway,
took advantage of the moment.

"Why am I to be disturbed?" said Gaston, helping himself to a thick slice
of one of the largest salmon that had ever ascended the Loire to be
captured between Paimboeuf and Saint-Nazaire.

"There is a messenger from Paris. Oh! but after monseigneur has
breakfasted will do; there is plenty of time."

"From Paris!" cried the prince, letting his fork fall. "A messenger
from Paris, do you say? And on whose part does this messenger come?"

"On the part of M. le Prince," said the _maitre d'hotel_ promptly.

Every one knows that the Prince de Conde was so called.

"A messenger from M. le Prince!" said Gaston, with an inquietude that
escaped none of the assistants, and consequently redoubled the general
curiosity.

Monsieur, perhaps, fancied himself brought back again to the happy times
when the opening of a door gave him an emotion, in which every letter
might contain a state secret, - in which every message was connected
with a dark and complicated intrigue. Perhaps, likewise, that great name
of M. le Prince expanded itself, beneath the roofs of Blois, to the