"Happily the poet smelt nothing but paper. Lockets and love-letters; and D'Hérouville and I for cutting each other's throats! That is droll. … My faith, I will do it! It will be a tolerably good stroke. 'I kiss your handsome grey eyes a thousand times'! Chevalier, Chevalier! Dip steel into blood, and little comes of it; but dip steel into that black liquid named ink, and a kingdom topples. She is to become a nun, too, she says. I think not."
It was the Vicomte d'Halluys; and when, shortly after this soliloquy, Montaigne came in, he saw that the vicomte was smiling and stabbing with the tip of his finger some black ash which sifted about on the table.
CHAPTER XX
A DEATH WARRANT OR A MARRIAGE CONTRACT
"Well, Gabrielle," said Anne, curiously, "what do you propose to do?"
Madame went to the window; madame stared far below the balcony at the broad river which lay smooth and white in the morning sunshine; madame drummed on the window-casing.
"It is a mare's nest," she replied, finally.
"First of all, there is D'Hérouville. True, he is in the hospital," observed Anne, "but he will shortly become an element."
Madame shrugged.