When Balsamo returned after an hour's stroll to the Red Castle ruins, he saw the lord of it all leave the house by a side door to cull roses and crush snails. His slender person was wrapped in his flowered dressing-gown.
"My lord," said Balsamo, with the more courtesy as he had been sounding his host's poverty, "allow my excuses with my respects. I ought to wait your coming down, but the aspect of Taverney tempted me, and I yearned to view the imposing ruins and pretty garden."
"The ruins are rather fine," returned the baron; "about all here worth looking at. The castle was my ancestors'; it is called the Red Castle, and we long have borne its name together with Taverney, it being the same barony. Oh, my lord, as you are a magician," continued the nobleman, "you ought with a wave of your wand uprear again the old Red Castle, as well as restore the two thousand odd acres around it. But I suppose you wanted all your art to make that beastly bed comfortable. It is my son's, and he growled enough at it."
"I protest it is excellent, and I want to prove it by doing you some service in return."
Labrie was bringing to his master a glass of spring water on a splendid china platter.
"Here's your chance," said the baron, always jeering; "turn that into wine as the greatest service of all."
Balsamo smiling, the old lord thought it was backing out and took the glass, swallowing the contents at a gulp.
"Excellent specific," said the mesmerist. "Water is the noblest of the elements, baron. Nothing resists it; it pierces stone now, and one of these days will dissolve diamonds."
"It is dissolving me. Will you drink with me. It has the advantage over wine of running freely here. Not like my liquor."