CHAPTER XVI.
Two servants, one an elderly, grave, and silent personage, with the air of knowing much and saying little, which is the proper characteristic of experienced serving-men; the other a sharp, acute young varleton, with eyes full of meaning and fun, which seemed to read a running commentary upon all he heard and saw, waited upon the guests at supper. With simple good sense Jean Charost took things as he found them, without inquiring into matters which did not immediately affect himself. Whatever rank and station he might mentally assign to his entertainer, he merely treated him according to the station he had assigned himself, with perfect politeness and respect, but with none of the subservient civility of a courtier.
Madame De Giac, upon her part, taking the hint which had been sent to her, at once cast off all restraint more completely than Jean Charost thought quite becoming, especially in the presence of her young companion. But she noticed him personally with a gay smile and a nod of the head, and he saw that she spoke in a whisper afterward with her entertainer. The young girl greeted him kindly, likewise, and the meal passed in gay and lively talk, not unseasoned with a fully sufficient quantity of wine. Now the wine of Gatinois has effects very like itself, of a light, sparkling, exhilarating kind, producing not easily any thing like drunkenness, but elevating gently and brightly, even in small portions. The effect is soon over, it is true; but the consequences are not so unpleasant as those of beverages of a more heady quality, and the high spirits generated are like the sparkling bubble on the cup, soon gone, leaving nothing but a tranquil calm behind them.
"How is our friend, Louis of Valois?" asked Madame De Giac, with a gay laugh, when the meal was nearly ended. "He was in unusual high spirits when we met you and him, Monsieur De Charost, at the Abbey of Juvisy."
"His spirits, madame, were like the cream upon your glass," replied Jean Charost; "too sparkling to last long. He has been very ill since."
"Ha!" said their entertainer, with a sudden start. "Ill! Has he been ill? Is he better?"
"I trust he is, sir," answered Jean Charost, somewhat dryly. "Better in some respects he certainly is."
There was a something--perhaps we might call it an instinct--which led the young gentleman to believe that tidings of the duke's illness would not be altogether disagreeable to the personage who sat opposite to him, and to say truth, he was unwilling to gratify him by any detailed account. The other seemed, however, not to interest himself very deeply in the matter; that topic was soon dropped; and Madame De Giac and the stranger continued talking together in an under tone, sometimes laughing gayly, sometimes conversing earnestly, but seeming almost to forget, in the freedom of their demeanor toward each other, the presence of the two younger people, who, made up the party of four.
Between Jean Charost and his fair companion the conversation, strange to say, was much graver than between their elders. It too, however, was carried on in a low tone, and, in fact, the party was thus completely divided into two for some time.
"I wish I were out of this companionship," said the fair Agnes, at length; "Madame De Giac is far too wise a woman for me. Experience of the world, I suppose, must come, but I would fain have it come piece by piece, and not wholesale."