"Have they quarreled?"
"What I am going to tell you is no secret, for I had it from the confidential agent of the Prince de Noirmont."
"The father of Madame de Lucenay?" said Edward, with a cunning and significant look, of which Boyer, faithful to his habits of reserve and discretion, took no notice, but resumed, coldly:
"The Duchess de Lucenay is the daughter of the Prince de Noirmont; the father of my lord was intimately connected with the prince. The duchess was then very young, and Saint Remy the elder treated her as familiarly as if she had been his own child. Notwithstanding his sixty years, he is a man of iron character, courageous as a lion, and of a probity that I shall permit myself to designate as marvelous. He possessed almost nothing, and had married, from love, the mother of the viscount, a young person rather rich, who brought a million, at the christening of which we have just had the honor to assist," and Boyer made a low bow. Edward did the same.
"The marriage was very happy until the moment when my lord's father found, as was said, by chance, some devilish letters, which proved evidently that, during an absence, some three or four years after his marriage, his wife had had a tender weakness for a certain Polish count."
"That often happens to the Poles. When I lived with the Marquis de
Senneval, Madame the Marchioness—une enragee—"
Boyer interrupted his companion. "You should know, my dear Edward, the alliances of our great families before you speak, otherwise you reserve for yourself cruel mistakes."
"How?"
"The Marchioness of Senneval is the sister of the Duke of Montbrison, where you desire to engage."
"Oh!—the devil!"