The wine had apparently quite dulled his brilliant wit, and now he only replied in curt monosyllables to queries addressed directly to him.
Anon Valledieu and old Général de Coutures pleading the ties of family and home, begged to be excused. Now de Mortémar alone was left to entertain his surly guest, bored to distraction, and dislocating his jaws in the vain efforts which he made to smother persistent yawns.
It was then close on half-past seven. The final glory of the setting sun had yielded to the magic wand of night which had changed the vivid crimson and orange first to delicate greens and mauves and then to the deep, the gorgeous blue of a summer's evening sky. The stars one by one gleamed in the firmament, and soon the crescent moon, chaste and cold, added her incomparable glory to the beauty and the silent peace of the night.
Tiny lights appeared at masthead or prow of the many craft lying at anchor in the roadsteads, and from far away through the open window there came wafted, on the sweet salt breeze, the melancholy sound of an old Normandy ditty sung by a pair of youthful throats.
Fatigue and gloom had oppressed Gaston at first, now it was unconquerable rage, seething and terrible, which caused him to remain silent. De Mortémar was racking his brains for an excuse to break up this wearisome tête-à-tête without overstepping the bounds of good-breeding, whilst cursing his own impetuosity which had prompted him to take this surly guest under his wing.
Jean Marie now entered with the candles, causing a welcome diversion. He placed one massive pewter candelabrum on the table occupied by Gaston and de Mortémar: the other he carried to the further end of the room. Having placed that down too, he lolled back toward de Mortémar. His rubicund face looked troubled, great beads of perspiration stood out upon his forehead, and his fat fingers wandered along the velvety surface of his round, closely-cropped crown.
"M'sieu le Comte . . ." he began hesitatingly.
"What is it?" asked Mortémar smothering a yawn.
"A stranger, M'sieu le Comte . . ." stammered Jean Marie.
"What, another? . . . I mean," added the young man with a nervous little laugh, feeling that the sudden exclamation of undisguised annoyance was not altogether courteous to his guest, "I mean a . . . an . . . an . . . unknown stranger? . . . altogether different to M. le Comte de Stainville, of course!"