"To begin, then, I find our friend, the Prince of Seyre, a most interesting, I might almost say a most fascinating, study."
Louise did not reply. After a moment's pause he continued:
"Let me tell you something which may or may not be unknown to you. A matter of eighty years ago, there was first kindled in the country places of France that fire which ultimately blazed over the whole land, devastating, murderous, anarchic, yet purifying. The family seat of the house of Seyre was near Orléans. In that region were many oppressors of the poor who, when they heard the mutterings of the storm, shivered for their safety. Upon not one of them did that furious mob of men and women pause to waste a single moment of their time. Without even a spoken word save one simultaneous, unanimous yell, they grouped together from all quarters—from every hamlet, from every homestead, men and women and even children—and moved in one solid body upon the Château de Seyre. The old prince would have been burned alive but for a servant who threw him a pistol, with which he blew out his brains, spitting at the mob. One of the sons was caught and torn almost to pieces. Only the father of our friend, the present Prince of Seyre, escaped."
"Why do you tell me all this?" Louise asked, shivering. "It is such a chapter of horrors!"
"It illustrates a point," Graillot replied. "Among the whole aristocracy of France there was no family so loathed and detested as the seigneurs of Seyre. Those at the château, and others who were arrested in Paris, met their death with singular contempt and calm. Eugène of Seyre, whose character in my small way I have studied, is of the same breed."
Louise took up a fan which lay on the table by her side, and waved it carelessly in front of her face.
"One does so love," she murmured, "to hear one's friends discussed in this friendly spirit!"
"It is because Eugène of Seyre is a friend of yours that I am talking to you in this fashion," Graillot continued. "You have also another friend—this young man from Cumberland."
"Well?"
"In him," Graillot went on, "one perceives all the primitive qualities which go to the making of splendid manhood. Physically he is almost perfect, for which alone we owe him a debt of gratitude. He has, if I judge him rightly, all the qualities possessed by men who have been brought up free from the taint of cities, from the smear of our spurious over-civilization. He is chivalrous and unsuspicious. He is also, unfortunately for him, the enemy of the prince."