"Toinette, so please you, sir."
"You may go."
And go the seneschal did, wondering very much at the uncommon interest his master seemed to be taking in vulgar, sublunary things.
Then Baron Armand de Chatel-morant paced the room a long time in gloomy meditation. At length he sat down again, and said aloud: "There is no doubt of it—I am in love. That face haunts me; Toinette's face is ever floating opposite to me. 'Tis an odd feeling; I was never so before. But, since it is so, I must even have the maiden—she will cheer me—I love her face. I will send to-morrow to Bordeaux, as from her uncle; and when she comes here, by the star of Aldeboran, she stays here, Jacques Fort to the contrary notwithstanding!"
"Wrong—quite wrong!" said a voice.
The baron turned coolly round, and saw, sitting upon the arm of the chair close to him, the figure of a very thin dwarf, with a long, unearthly face, and fingers like hawks' claws. This was the imp—the baron's Familiar.
"How, Klosso!" said Armand; "you come without being called?"
"Yes; but you would have called me soon."
"You know what I am thinking of—of Toinette. I love her—I must have her."
"You will not have her."