"My dear woman," said Dominique—this time in a supplicating voice—"spare him; on my word, you shall be paid."
"Pshaw! Now we shall see him—this smuggling Marquis."
The door was gently opened, and the Marquis appeared.
"I have not courage enough to witness this scene," said the trembling Dominique, and he shut himself up in his dark chamber.
[CHAPTER III]
THE DEBTOR
At sight of the Marquis, Madelaine drew herself up like a fighting-cock, and cast her eyes, flashing with anger, on the young man.
The Marquis of Létorière was then about twenty years of age. The portraits we have of him, and the unanimous witness of his contemporaries, agree in representing him as the type of the most seductive ideality.
At this age, his proportions of exquisite elegance resembled rather the Grecian god of love than Antinous.
All the treasures of antique statuary did not offer, it is said, anything comparable to the harmonious beauty of his form. Under this charming envelope nature had hidden muscles of steel, the courage of a lion, a brilliant wit, a lofty soul, and a generous heart.