Philibert blushed at her words, but his eyes shone with a new light. "I had not heard of our new dignity," he said. "I shall doubtless find a letter when I go to my room."
"And, my dear boy, I have news of my own to tell you," went on the Lady Clotilde, simpering. "I suppose I should have waited until your return, and I should have notified my other relatives, but I always was so romantic. Philibert, I have married again."
"What!" cried the young man, in amazement.
"I do not see why you are so surprised," she returned coldly. "You could not seem more astonished if you had seen a ghost. Why should I not marry if I feel so inclined?"
"Why not, indeed? I beg your pardon, Cousin. Who is the happy man?"
"It is the Spanish attaché, Don Geronimo Bartolomeo Zurriago y Escafusa," she returned, saying the long name with a good deal of pride. "He owns an estate in his own country to which he would have returned long ago if—well, if there had not been attractions at the court of Austria."
"I hope you will be very happy, Cousin," said Philibert, excusing himself as soon as it was possible, for he wanted to be alone and think of all that his new dignity might bring to him.
Leaving the Lady Clotilde's apartment, he met Le Glorieux, who was bubbling over with news. "So many things have happened, even in the week since we returned," said the jester, "that it seems to me it will take a week to repeat them. In the first place, Clotilde is married."
"So she has just informed me."
"When I heard it," went on the jester, "I was so surprised that it almost made me ill. But the people who marry, and especially the other people they select to marry, is a mystery I never could solve."