The ivory columns and cornices destined for the child's bed were found after some searching.
"I knew that there was something here like that," said the marquis smiling. "They are of beautiful workmanship; they came from a state canopy taken from the chapel of the Abbey of Fontgombaud, of which I was abbot, that is to say, lord by right of conquest, for a whole fortnight. When I took possession of it, I remember saying to myself: 'If the new Abbot of Fontgombaud could become a father soon, this would be a fitting canopy for his first-born son!'—But, alas! my friend, I did not inherit all the monkish virtues, and in order to have a son, I was obliged to find one by a miracle long after I came to maturity. Never mind! he will be none the less dear, and he will none the less sleep his angel's sleep under the canopy of the Virgin of Fontgombaud."
The marquis was interrupted in his reminiscences by the arrival of La Flèche, who asked to speak with him.
The chests and the door of the treasury were carefully locked, and the vagabond was received in the barnyard.
It was beautiful weather, and Jovelin was of opinion that a trickster of that sort should not be admitted to the house.
What he had foreseen actually happened. La Flèche brought with him the seal, which he claimed to have found in little Pilar's possession; he also assumed to reveal the mystery of Mario's birth and of the murder of Florimond by Monsieur de Villareal.
The marquis allowed him to say all that he had to say, then dismissed him, with a crown, for the trouble he had taken to bring back the seal; but he pretended not to understand the story he had told, to place no faith in it, and to be much shocked that he should dare to accuse Monsieur de Villareal, against whom he had no other proof than the Moorish woman's excitement and her exclamation when she thought that she recognized him on the moor of Champillé.
Herein the marquis, advised by Lucilio, acted wisely. If he had seemed to credit the accusation, La Flèche would have been quite capable of giving the Spaniard warning, in order to have two strings to his bow.
La Flèche, bitterly disappointed by his fiasco, sheepishly withdrew, and was walking along the outer wall of Galatée's garden, when he heard a soft voice calling his name.
It was Mario, whom the marquis had not chosen to admit to the interview, desiring that all relations between his heir and gypsydom should be severed irrevocably. But as he had not explained his wishes in that respect, the child did not know that he was acting in opposition to them when he glided through the labyrinth and watched for the gypsy to pass, through a little loophole looking toward the village.