"Speak, lad; you have something to say."
"Monsieur, I can not return to the hôtel. Monsieur le Marquis has forbidden me." Breton's eyes filled with tears. It was the first lie he had ever told his master.
"Have you any money, Victor?" asked the Chevalier, taking out the fifty pistoles won from the vicomte and dividing them.
"Less than fifty pistoles; here is half of them."
The Chevalier pushed the gold toward the lackey. "Take these, lad; they will carry you through till you find a new master. You have been a good and faithful servant."
Breton made a negative gesture. "Monsieur," timidly, "I do not want money, and I could never grow accustomed to a new master. I was born at the château in Périgny. My mother was your nurse and she loved you. I know your ways so well, Monsieur Paul. Can I not accompany you to Quebec? I ask no wages; I ask nothing but a kind word now and again, and a fourth of what you have to eat. I have saved a little, and out of that I will find my clothing."
The Chevalier smiled at Victor. "We never find constancy where we look for it. Lad," he said to Breton, "I can not take you with me. I am going not as a gentleman but as a common trooper, and they are not permitted to have lackeys. Take the money; it is all I can do for you."
Breton stretched a supplicating hand toward the poet.
"Let him go, Paul," urged Victor. "Du Puys will make an exception in your case. Let him go. My own lad Hector goes to my sister's, and she will take good care of him. You can't leave this lad here, Paul. Take him along."
"But your future?" still reluctant to see Victor leave France.