no message or correspond with any one outside Castle Bercy. He had not
therefore written to Guida. She seemed an interminable distance away.
He was as completely in a new world as though he had been transplanted;
he was as wholly in the air of fresh ambitions as though he were
beginning the world again--ambitions as gorgeous as bewildering.

For, almost from the first, the old nobleman treated him like a son.
He spoke freely to him of the most private family matters, of the most
important State affairs. He consulted with him, he seemed to lean upon
him. He alluded often, in oblique phrase, to adoption and succession.
In the castle Philip was treated as though he were in truth a high
kinsman of the Duke. Royal ceremony and state were on every hand. He
who had never had a servant of his own, now had a score at his disposal.
He had spent his early days in a small Jersey manor-house; here he was
walking the halls of a palace with the step of assurance, the most
honoured figure in a principality next to the sovereign himself.
"Adoption and succession" were words that rang in his ears day and night.
The wild dream had laid feverish hands upon him. Jersey, England, the
Navy, seemed very far away.

Ambition was the deepest passion in him, even as defeating the hopes of
the Vaufontaines was more than a religion with the Duke. By no trickery,
but by a persistent good-nature, alertness of speech, avoidance of
dangerous topics, and aptness in anecdote, he had hourly made his
position stronger, himself more honoured at the Castle Bercy. He had
also tactfully declined an offer of money from the Prince--none the less
decidedly because he was nearly penniless. The Duke's hospitality he was
ready to accept, but not his purse--not yet.

Yet he was not in all acting a part. He was sincere in his liking for