“Run and see who can come at half-past eleven, girl.”
Nicole went out and through the passage by the house on the other street, and through the door which she left open. Richelieu saw a shadow of military aspect flit. This shadow and the face of Nicole, lighted up by her candle, enabled the old noble to read her character at a glance.
“Our old scamp of a Taverney spoke about his daughter, but he never breathed a word about the pretty maid,” he muttered.
“The Duke of Richelieu!” Nicole announced, not without a flutter of the heart, for the lady-killer was notorious.
It produced such a sensation on the baron that he got up and went to the door without believing his ears.
“Do you know what has brought me,” said the duke, giving hat and cane to Nicole to be more at ease in a chair. “Or rather what I have brought my old brother-officer? why, the company you asked the other day for your son. The King has just given it. I refused to act then for I was likely to be the Prime Minister but now that I have declined the post I can ask a favor. Here it is.”
“Such bounty on your part—— ”
“Pooh! it is the natural outcome of my duty as a friend. But mark that the King does this more to spite Lady Dubarry than to oblige me. He knows that your son offended the Lady by quarreling with her bully of a brother on the highway. That is why she takes me in off-dudgeon at present.”
“You want me to believe that you serve me to spite the Dubarry woman?”
“Have it so. By the way, you have a daughter as well as a son.”