The man dressed in black and violet turned round. He had a good and mild countenance, without expression—a mathematician minus the pride. A certain fire sparkled in the eyes of this personage, a rather sly smile played round his lips; but the observer might soon have remarked that this fire and this smile applied to nothing, enlightened nothing. Vatel laughed like an absent man, and amused himself like a child. At the sound of his master’s voice he turned round, exclaiming: “Oh! monseigneur!”
“Yes, it is I. What the devil are you doing here, Vatel? Wine! You are buying wine at a cabaret in the Place de Greve!”
“But, monseigneur,” said Vatel, quietly, after having darted a hostile glance at Gourville, “why am I interfered with here? Is my cellar kept in bad order?”
“No, certes, Vatel, no, but——”
“But what?” replied Vatel. Gourville touched Fouquet’s elbow.
“Don’t be angry, Vatel, I thought my cellar—your cellar—sufficiently well stocked for us to be able to dispense with recourse to the cellar of L’Image de-Notre-Dame.”
“Eh, monsieur,” said Vatel, shrinking from monseigneur to monsieur with a degree of disdain: “your cellar is so well stocked that when certain of your guests dine with you they have nothing to drink.”
Fouquet, in great surprise, looked at Gourville. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that your butler had not wine for all tastes, monsieur; and that M. de la Fontaine, M. Pellisson, and M. Conrart, do not drink when they come to the house—these gentlemen do not like strong wine. What is to be done, then?”
“Well, and therefore?”