Remarking that he had but lately heard of monsieur le comte's return to
France, he hoped he had enjoyed his career in--was it then England or
America? But yes, he remembered, it began with an expedition to take the
Channel Isles from England, an insolent, a criminal business in time of
peace, fit only for boys or buccaneers. Had monsieur le comte then spent
all these years in the Channel Isles--a prisoner perhaps? No? Fastening
his eyes cynically on the symbol of the Royalist cause on Detricand's
breast, he asked to what he was indebted for the honour of this present
visit. Perhaps, he added drily, it was to inquire after his own health,
which, he was glad to assure monsieur le comte and all his cousins of
Vaufontaine, was never better.

The face was like a leather mask, telling nothing of the arid sarcasm in
the voice. The shoulders were shrunken, the temples fallen in, the neck
behind was pinched, and the eyes looked out like brown beads alive with
fire, and touched with the excitement of monomania. His last word had a
delicate savagery of irony, though, too, there could be heard in the tone
a defiance, arguing apprehension, not lost upon his visitor.

Detricand had inwardly smiled during the old man's monologue, broken only
by courteous, half-articulate interjections on his own part. He knew too
well the old feud between their houses, the ambition that had possessed
many a Vaufontaine to inherit the dukedom of Bercy, and the Duke's futile
revolt against that possibility. But for himself, now heir to the
principality of Vaufontaine, and therefrom, by reversion, to that of
Bercy, it had no importance.

He had but one passion now, and it burned clear and strong, it dominated,
it possessed him. He would have given up any worldly honour to see it